When Jonathan Kozol wrote this book in 1985, he said 60 million adults or about 1/3 of the adult population were seriously illiterate. They couldn't read or couldn't read well enough to function as fully-participating citizens of our democracy. I'm aware of that from holding my sign. Many people stare at it as though it were in some other language. Some who can just make out what it says, let me know they can read it by saying Absolutely or Ain't That the Truth as though they could read easily. One bright-looking woman who I tutored in an adult literacy class a few years ago told me she had headaches when she got home from work from staring so hard at the pages of a book on the subway to make it look like she was reading it.

'More money is put into prisons than into schools. That, in itself, is the description of a nation bent on suicide. I mean, what is more precious to us than our own children? We are going to build a lot more prisons if we do not deal with the schools and their inequalities.'
                                   --Jonathan Kozol 
 

 

‘I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.’

                            —Toni Morrison

 
'This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.'
     --Bob Dylan

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bob_dylan_390509

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bob_dylan_390509

'There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.'
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One
 

'The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic.'
― Rod Serling 

I've told myself I should just point at the sign when people ask me what I'm there for. They only stop for a minute. There's no time to say anything really that will satisfy them. People are competitive. They stop to win. They want to best me and the sign with their own take on things. Most people don't stop. The sign's message is clear. Most people smile with their eyes when they read it. Some people who pass the sign every day, smile every day. Some cars that go by beep every day. Peace sign or thumb-up thrust out the window.