MONTCLAIR, NJ (September 30, 2026) — On Tuesday, October 13, at 7 p.m., the Montclair Public Library and Partners for Health Foundation will be hosting another pairing of renowned authors to discuss a landmark civil rights bestseller. Heather McGhee, the former CEO of Demos, a social policy think tank, and Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow,” will be talking about about McGhee’s “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” in which she suggests a whole new way to view opportunity in America.
What if individual groups stopped trying to get a larger share of the pie? What if we worked together to create a bigger, better pie? If you’re sick of the antagonism and zero-sum-game thinking so prevalent in American public life today, you’ll find a refreshing antidote in this still timely breakthrough book from 2022.
Registration is free and required. Register at tinyurl.com/OBOMMcGhee. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The conversation will be followed by an audience Q&A and signing with Watchung Booksellers. Thanks to the generosity of Partners for Health, the library will be giving away 100 free books to the first guests to check in.
This program is part of Open Book / Open Mind, MPL’s popular, long-running literary conversation series and serves as the grand finale to the library’s community read, also sponsored by Partners for Health. This community read, titled “Montclair Reads ‘The Sum of Us’ by Heather McGhee” provided 307 copies of the book to 15 book clubs in Montclair as well as the Civics and Government Institute and the Center for Social Justice, two smaller learning communities at Montclair High School.
“We’re thrilled to welcome two such outstanding authors to Montclair for a public conversation,” says Library Director Radwa Ali. “And we can’t thank Partners for Health enough for their continuing, generous support, which allows us to make these high quality programs accessible to the community!”
This is the third year the Montclair Public Library and Partners for Health have joined forces to highlight a monumental bestseller about social justice by an important writer and hosted a community read to support it. Last year the event welcomed Richard and Leah Rothstein to discuss “Just Action,” the follow-up activist handbook to “The Color of Law,” with Ryan Haygood, executive director of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. In 2024 the event hosted Matthew Desmond in conversation about “Poverty, by America,” with Andrea Israel, the author of “Invisible Child.”
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.
“[‘The Sum of Us’ is] Illuminating and hopeful . . . McGhee isn’t a stinging polemicist; she cajoles instead of ridicules. She appeals to concrete self-interest in order to show how our fortunes are tied up with the fortunes of others. ‘We suffer because our society was raised deficient in social solidarity,’ she writes, explaining that this idea is ‘true to my optimistic nature.’ She is compassionate but also clear-eyed, refusing to downplay the horrors of racism…There is a striking clarity to this book; there is also a depth of kindness in it that all but the most churlish readers will find moving.”—The New York Times
Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer and the author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” a bestselling, award-winning book that helped to transform the national debate on racial and criminal justice in the United States. Alexander is a resident of Montclair.
The program is co-presented by The Montclair Local, Dumpling Diplomacy and The League of Women Voters of the Montclair Area.
Open Book / Open Mind is presented by the Montclair Public Library with the generous support of The Montclair Public Library Foundation, Watchung Booksellers, Anonymous, Dr. Alex and Doris Malaspina, David and Mary Lee Jones, and our individual Underwriters, the First Congregational Church, Amanti Vino and The George Montclair.