The law firm of Warner Norcross & Judd LLP has chosen Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange History of Integration in America, by Tanner Colby as the 2015 selection for its One Book, One Firm series.
Now in its eighth year, One Book, One Firm explores the issues of diversity and inclusion during a summer lunch-and-learn program. Launched in 2008 by Diversity Partner Rodney Martin, the annual event is modeled after the success of community reading programs that encourage all residents of a city to read, discuss and share the experience of the same book.
Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange History of Integration in America was nominated for the 2013 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The book examines integration in the United States during the second half of the 20th Century. Colby’s work is organized in four sections, one each regarding integration of schools, integration of neighborhoods, integration in the workplace, and integration in the church.
Attorneys and staff from all eight Warner Norcross offices across the state will join in a special lunch-and-learn program on Tuesday, July 14 to hear from a panel of community leaders who will share their insights into the book. The panel will include: Nancy Haynes, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan; civil rights attorney Stephen Drew; and the Very Rev. John J. Geaney, rector of the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Grand Rapids.
Past One Book, One Firm selections have included: Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, by Bich Minh Nguyen; The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work, by Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson; The Help, by Kathryn Stockett; and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.
In addition to the One Book, One Firm program, the firm has a Diversity Book Club that offers year-round reading and discussion opportunities of fiction and non-fiction works. Books selected for this series have included The Zookeeper’s Wife, America’s Boy, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
More information can be found at http:diversity.wnj.com.
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