Open Book / Open Mind; Heather McGhee; "The Sum of Us." With Michelle Alexander.
What if we've been looking at opportunity in America all wrong? What if individual groups stopped trying to get a larger slice of the pie and worked together to create a bigger, better pie?
Join the Montclair Public Library and Partners for Health Foundation for an inspiring conversation between Heather McGhee, an influential economic and public policy expert, and Michelle Alexander, a renowned civil rights lawyer and author. They'll be talking about "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together," McGhee's landmark New York Times bestseller from 2021 about how overcoming racism helps everyone, not just people of color, and how to move beyond the zero-sum vision of American opportunity.
After the discussion, there will be a Q&A period, followed by signing with Watchung Booksellers.
Thanks to the generosity of Partners for Health Foundation, free copies of “The Sum of Us” will be available to the first 100 guests to enter (who have not already received books in the Library’s community read).
Join our community read, Montclair Reads "The Sum of Us," between June and October to get ready for this exceptional evening. Thanks to the generosity of Partners for Health, we'll be giving away free books to book clubs while supplies last. Click here for more details and to find out about other supporting programs.
The event will take place at the First Congregational Church of Montclair, 40 S. Fullerton Avenue. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The event is free but registration is required.
Open Book / Open Mind is sponsored by Montclair Public Library Foundation, Watchung Booksellers, Anonymous Dr. Alex and Doris Malaspina, David and Mary Lee Jones, and our individual Underwriters. We are also grateful for the generous support of our in-kind sponsors, First Congregational Church of Montclair, The George, and Amanti Vino. To join our Open Book / Open Mind Underwriters, click here.
- Date:
- Tuesday, October 13, 2026
- Time:
- 7:00pm - 8:30pm
- Location:
- Montclair - First Congregational Church of Montclair
- BCCLS Library:
- Montclair Public Library
- Audience:
- Adults
- Categories:
- Adult School Open Book / Open Mind
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heather McGhee is an expert in economic and social policy. The former president of the inequality-focused think tank Demos, McGhee has drafted legislation, testified before Congress, and contributed regularly to news shows, including NBC’s Meet the Press. She now chairs the board of Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Too often, many of us view opportunity in America as a zero-sum game where there are bound to be winners and losers. But in a personal journey across the U.S., McGhee found Americans in neighborhoods, at work and in houses of worship working together for change and benefiting from what she calls "the Solidarity Dividend." We invite you to explore what these ideas look like in Montclair today.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar and author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness "— the bestselling book that helped to transform the national debate on racial and criminal justice in the United States. Since "The New Jim Crow" was first published in 2010, it has spent nearly 250 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and has been cited in judicial decisions and adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads, and has inspired a generation of racial justice activists motivated by Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” The book has won numerous awards, including the 2011 NAACP Image Award for best nonfiction. Alexander is a resident of Montclair.
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