Jaja’s African Hair Braiding: A Resource Guide

Curated by Berkeley Rep’s In Dialogue initiative, this guide seeks to empower our audiences, connect the work on our stage to the work of our community partners, and provoke civic engagement. You’ll get to know some local and national organizations working in the fields of human rights, immigration justice, and uplifting the Bay Area’s African Diaspora community. Below please find some concrete, approachable action items catered specifically for our audience from our local partners and national collaborators. We hope that after reading you take a step, no matter how small, toward building a more equitable future for all.

Appreciate work created by local artists of African descent with Afro Urban Society

Afro Urban Society is a non-profit organization of cultural creatives dedicated to boosting art, media, and the tough-but-necessary conversations relevant to the African diaspora. Through incubation, resource mapping, production, and cultural events, Afro Urban Society ensures that Black creatives — even those who don’t yet identify as artists — have everything they need to be.

• Book parties, performances, and interactive experiences curated by Afro Urban Society.
• Donate to support Afro Urban Society’s programming.
• Attend one of Afro Urban Society’s many events.

Support Black immigrants with East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC)

East Bay Sanctuary Covenant provides legal and social services, community organizing, and education to low-income immigrants and asylum seekers, reaching 12,000+ people yearly from 72 different countries. EBSC works with historically marginalized communities fleeing violence and persecution, including Indigenous immigrants, LGBTQ+ immigrants, unaccompanied minors, and survivors of gender-based violence. EBSC works closely with partner organizations to support Black immigrants in the Bay Area.

• Call your Congress members to push for the protection of Black immigrants through the adoption of the policy recommendations from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).
• Donate to organizations that serve Black immigrant populations with legal and social support, like the African Advocacy Network, Priority Africa Network, Partnerships for Trauma Recovery, EBSC, BAJI, and the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund.
• Amplify immigrant voices! Continue to learn more and amplify stories from the Bay Area’s immigrant community. You can start by watching interviews from the Amplifying Sanctuary Voices series.

Take a stand against race-based hair discrimination with House of Joy and The CROWN Coalition

The CROWN Act, which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is a law that prohibits race-based hair discrimination, which is the denial of employment and educational opportunities because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including braids, locs, twists, or bantu knots.

• Learn more about hair discrimination by exploring the CROWN Coalition’s CROWN Act Research Studies.
• Sign this petition in support of the CROWN Act.
• Download the CROWN Clubs toolkit for natural hair care tips, strategies to combat hair discrimination, and more.

Celebrate Black art and culture from the global lens of the African Diaspora with the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD)

MoAD is a contemporary art museum that celebrates Black cultures, ignites challenging conversations, and inspires learning through the global lens of the African Diaspora.

• Visit the museum! Located at 685 Mission St in San Francisco, MoAD is open Wed–Sat, 11am–6pm and Sun, noon–5pm. Check out their exhibition calendar to see what’s on view.

Read stories from the African Diaspora and migrants in America with Revolution Books

Explore this non-exhaustive recommended reading list curated by our partners at Revolution Books, a bookstore with literature, history, science, art, philosophy, and revolutionary theory.

Non-fiction

• Africans in Harlem: An Untold New York Story by Boukary Sawadogo
• In the Shadow of Liberty: The Invisible History of Immigrant Detention in the United States by Ana Raquel Minian
• Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat
• The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life by Lauren Markham
• Solito by Javier Zamora
• Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Graphic novels

• Illegal by Eoin Colfer
• When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
• Unaccompanied: Stories of Brave Teenagers Seeking Asylum by Tracy White

Fiction

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo
• The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
• The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
• Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

Poetry

• Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora edited by Janine Joseph, Esther Lin, and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

You can order the above titles at Revolution Book’s website or visit their store:

2444 Durant Ave
Berkeley CA 94704
Tue–Fri, 12:30–7pm | Sat–Sun, 1–6pm