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Celebrating Literacy
Rotary Club of Auburn: One Book One Community
 
Bart O’Brien  (at the time Auburn Rotary’s president) asked me to meet him at a local coffee shop. We sat next to a large plate window, splinters of sunlight crawling over our coffee-stained table.  I was a little nervous, unsure why the president wanted to meet with me. Did I forget to wear my pin at last week’s meeting?  Had I forgotten a meeting? Bart and I have known each other for nearly thirty-five years as we began our teaching careers in adjacent school districts around the same time.
 
Sipping our lattes and munching on cranberry muffins, we reminisced about former students and the joys of retirement.  “I have a proposition that I think you will be interested in, being a retired English teacher and all. Has to do with books.”  Because I was a Rotarian neophyte, Bart explained that literacy is one of the Rotary’s six areas of focus.
 
Bart pushed a newspaper clipping about a neighboring town’s annual community literacy project across the table.  I scanned the article as Bart continued his pitch. “We both love books and I think this would be a great project for our club. Basically we choose a book and get the community to read it and then have a few events based on the book. Interested?”
 
Being a bibliophile, Bart knew I’d be interested.  “So, how do we make this happen?” I asked.
 
Since that meeting thousands in the Auburn community have read OBOC’s selections: Nature Noir, Wall of White, The Beekeeper’s Lament, When the Emperor Was Divine, and 2016’s  Pulitzer and National Book Award novel, The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead.  
 
What started as a simple Rotarian project has grown into an annual community event that is highly anticipated every year. Paula Amerine, a former high school teacher and talented artist says “This Rotary supported project has our citizens currently talking about what book will be chosen next year. The community is guessing and waiting for an exciting future literary experience”.
 
The “Mission” of Rotary Club of Auburn’s OBOC, in short, is to promote literacy. Our first goal is to get Auburn area people to come together around a book to discuss its merits, insights, errors, misconceptions or whatever. We strive to promote reading. As much as we can, we wish to celebrate our community.
     Our secondary goal is to help people learn more about their region, and what makes it the place it is today. Sometimes people get hung up on a particular book; they don’t like it, or think it is not great literature. They, however, miss the point. Our goal is literacy in general with a focus on the greater Auburn area. 
 
Article from our local newspaper The Auburn Journal
Freedom train: Nationally known author Colson Whitehead speaks in Auburn
 
“I hope this is a work of art. But if people come out of it with a different understanding of race and history – like I did – then that’s a good thing. How do we live up to the Founding Fathers, who wrote this incredible document and had slaves? ... What America is and what it wants to be?”
Colson Whitehead, author of “The Underground Railroad.”
 
The Placer High School auditorium was packed, below and on the balcony, with students and community members to hear national award-winning author Colson Whitehead talk about his book, slavery and its American legacies.
 
Approximately 650 people attending Auburn’s OBOC’s Author’s Night with 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner, Colson Whitehead
 
“This book, ‘The Underground Railroad,’ is one of the most celebrated in the nation,” said Bart O’Brien, retired Placer Union High School District superintendent, introducing Whitehead for the One Book, One Community event. “Our group decided we, the denizens of Placer County, should join the national conversation on race.”
Beth Ruyak of Capitol Public Radio moderated the night, which included questions from the audience and book signings.
 
When Whitehead learned about the Underground Railroad as a child, he imagined a subway beneath the earth that slaves could ride to freedom. That stuck with him. He decided to write other books first, so he could do it justice – focusing on characters and not mundane aspects like ventilation shafts.
 
He kept wondering whether to pursue it and wrote seven other books. Eventually, his wife convinced him to tell his shrink about the idea, who then led him to tell his editor.
 
“He turned to me and said, ‘Giddy up mofo.’ Which is old publisher speak for, ‘That’s a compelling idea,’” he said, to laughter.
The tale reaches back into the slave-era in Georgia. Cora, 16 or 17 – it’s unknown how old, since slave owners didn’t keep track of age like other property – discovers a railroad that takes her through different states of American possibilities.
 
She endures trauma and pain in her escape. Whitehead said it was difficult to research, given his own family history on a plantation. It took him 16 years to finish it, involving a large amount of research from slave diaries to owner records and other sources.
 
Ruyak asked how he decided when details were too much.
 
“There were Friday night lynchings,” he said. “People would make popcorn and take postcard photos with their children and grandparents. Whenever I asked if I went too far, I just turned to the history books. They wrote, ‘We lynched that boy good.’” Ruyak said in 1860, there were 4 million slaves in the south – a third of the population. A fraction escaped. She asked, how does oppression work?
 
“A lot of people were pulled into the fight for or against it. But most people didn’t care,” Whitehead said. “People were focused on what was going on in their lives. Today, we might not be interested in what’s going on in Syria or homelessness in SF. We have a lot on our plates and don’t see the great social issues of our time.”
 
“What I learned was, there’s heroes and villains, black and white, and people in between. When do those people step up?” he said.
 
Part of his effort, he said, was to accurately portray plantations. When people were brutalized, raped and tortured, they might not be on their best behavior or looking out for each other, he said.
 
Ruyak asked if his purpose was to continue or reignite the topic of slavery.
 
“That’s not my goal necessarily. I hope this is a work of art. But if people come out of it with adifferent understanding of race and history – like I did – then that’s a good thing,” he said. “How do we live up to the Founding Fathers, who wrote this incredible document and had slaves? ... What America is and what it wants to be?”
 
He read several passages and shared his experience growing up black in America. Despite being from a wealthy, Manhattan family, his parents still gave him the “talk.”
 
“You’re over five feet and a threat,” he said. “Whether driving while black, or being president of the United States, you are asked for your papers.”
 
Afterwards, a long line formed for autographs. Courtney McCullough, a white Sierra College student, put her notes away. She was inspired by Cora’s journey as a strong woman and enjoyed the travels to different states like “Gulliver’s Travels.”
 
Other readers said they found the book poetic. Some bought the book. Susan Rushton, a local author, found it suspenseful and kept her on edge.
 
Katy Hena, a black Sierra College student, was also inspired.
 
“I didn’t have a favorite specific part, but the fact that the main character, even at a time of no empathy, was kind and sacrificed herself for others – that was amazing,” Hena said.
 
Leueen Jimenez, an Auburn resident, said a family tale is that her family helped on the railroad.
 
“It’s a family story, so who knows,” she said. “My eyes were opened to how they were treated. This wasn’t just a past thing. We can learn from this.”
Left to Right: Bart O’Brien 2012 Rotary President, Beth Ruyak, NPR, Colson Whitehead, author Underground Railroad, Steve Grundmeier, Auburn Rotarian
Auburn Rotary’s One Book One Community African Culture Dinner
African Dinner and Night of Culture Menu
Billboard Maple St. Auburn
 
 
Rotary Club of Auburn
Boys’ and Girls’ Club Reading Program
 
Rotary Readers help 1 st -3 rd graders from the Boys & Girls Club with reading. Each reader spends about 20 minutes with each student. In that 20 minutes the student may read the entire time, or the reader and the student will take turns reading pages. When the reader takes his/her turn, the student is able to hear how a text is read with appropriate emphasis or pauses. This reading program is designed to help the young students read at their grade level. Studies have shown that students learn to read up
until 3 rd grade, and they read to learn after that. The goal for each reader is to assist each of these students to be prepared for their learning years, therefore, enabling them to have a strong education foundation.