Black Lives Matter Solidarity Statement

The College Book Art Association (CBAA) stands in solidarity with the international and ongoing movement against systemic racism and police brutality. In outrage and with urgency, we affirm that Black Lives Matter.

We are listening, learning, and looking within.

We are asking ourselves:

• How will our organization center and amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)?

• How will we welcome and support BIPOC students, artists, educators, and arts organizations?

• How will we actively pursue and support anti-racist work within our field and in society?

• How will we create and share book art tools that support our membership to also do this anti-racism work?

We are called to action:

• The CBAA Board of Directors is working to establish sustainable anti-racist initiatives that will hold space for BIPOC voices in our organization and our field.

• We are revisiting our vision, mission, and goals to ensure that anti-racism is explicitly incorporated into the foundations of our organization.

• We are planning intentional outreach to BIPOC students, artists, educators, and arts organizations, including Historically Black Universities and Colleges (HBCUs), with interests and programs that intersect with our mission.

• We are developing our CBAA Book Art  + Social Justice Resource List (originally established as the CBAA Diversified Reading List) with a focus on BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and anti-racist resources. This is an open, editable, collective work-in-progress and we welcome your contributions.

• We are considering new ways to welcome BIPOC members and support anti-racist work through our annual meetings, exhibitions, publications, grants, scholarships, and awards.

• We are committed to looking internally within our organizational structure for systems and policies that do not support diversity and anti-racism, and reworking those parts of our organization. We encourage our educational partners, institutions, and organizations to do the same.

We invite you to join us:

• Consider the questions that we are asking, send us your feedback, and/or volunteer to help us with our anti-racist initiatives by reaching out to president@collegebookart.org.

• Self-educate by seeking out BIPOC voices and anti-racist resources, like Printed Matter’s list of Black Artists and Publishers, the SPACE/RACE reading list, Where Are the Black Designers, and #BlackintheIvory.

• Support the BIPOC and anti-racist artists, activists, and organizations leading this urgent and essential movement and inspiring us to act, including Black Lives Matter, Movement for Black Lives, Black Art Futures Fund, and Crafting the Future. 

The CBAA Board of Directors will hold a special meeting on Monday, June 22, 2020 to discuss our next steps and we will finalize a concrete action plan at our next full board meeting on July 17, 2020. We will provide an update to our membership by the end of July, and we look forward to sharing our progress.