Color Me Rising, 2015
In 2015, For the People Artists Collective (FTP) collaborated with the Chicago Childcare Collective (ChiChiCo) to create Color Me Rising, a radical coloring book. We selected around 20 different campaigns, actions, and efforts that spanned from November 2014 through December of 2015 in Chicago. From the We Charge Genocide Delegation to the United Nations, to the street protests demanding #JusticeforLaquan, these coloring book pages tell stories of love, loss, collective healing, resistance, and liberation.
Now out of print with over 1,300 copies sold and hundreds donated to local youth-centered grassroots organizations, we are offering 10 free pages for download to share with the younger people in your lives, or perhaps, yourself! |
Contributing Artists: Leila Abdelrazaq, Dan Adams, Caira Lee Conner-Ware, Molly Costello, Jireh L. Drake, Rachel Hoffman, Grace Mattingly, Ariel Perkins-Fenwick, Ruby Pinto, Raquel Rodriguez, Timmy Rose, Annan Shehadi, Melisa Stephen, Tyesha Thomas, Monica Trinidad, and Rachel Wallis.
A note for adults and grown folks sharing these with younger people; an excerpt from Color Me Rising: The reality of this work is that so much of what we do is because we have lost people we care about. Many young Black people who have been killed by the police are remembered in this book. We hope that you will take the time to have a meaningful and sensitive conversation with the young people in your life who may have questions about why some people are killed and not others, or why protests, direct actions, or breaking laws are ways to save lives. Perhaps consider how you would describe resistance, or solidarity, or queerness, or anti-Blackness, or liberation - before you gift this book (or these pages). We know that many young people have to deal with these realities in their lives already, and still others helped organize and lead actions that are in some of these pages. But being able to actually talk about the meaning of the different drawings and the importance of building power to change society is probably the most important thing to come from a project like this. Thank you for being willing to be part of that by sharing this coloring book.