Tamara Shiloh on Literacy, Legacy & Building Inclusive Classrooms – ep.168

In this inspiring episode of the Jali Podcast, host Melyssa Barrett sits down with Tamara Shiloh—author, entrepreneur, educator, and founder of the Multicultural Children’s Bookstore—to explore how she’s transforming the way we teach and understand diverse history. From her acclaimed children’s book series like Jaxon’s Magical Adventure with Black Inventors and Scientists to launching inclusive lesson plans and a new K-6 micro school rooted in Black culture, Tamara shares how she’s rewriting the narrative for the next generation. Discover her powerful approach to literacy, representation, and education reform, and hear how she turns banned books into bestsellers and empowers educators with ready-to-use Black, Latinx, Asian, and Women in History materials.

Whether you’re a teacher, parent, entrepreneur, or changemaker—this episode will leave you inspired to reimagine what inclusive education can truly look like.

🔗 Learn more at: multiculturalbookstore.com

Melyssa Barrett:  Welcome to the Jali Podcast. I’m your host, Melyssa Barrett. This podcast is for those who are interested in the conversation around equity, diversity, and inclusion. Each week, I’ll be interviewing a guest who has something special to share or is actively part of building solutions in the space. Let’s get started. Welcome to the Jali Podcast, where culture, history, and community intersect through powerful stories. Today, I have the absolute honor of welcoming a true force for literacy, representation, and cultural education. Tamara Shiloh. Tamara is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and unapologetic champion of inclusive history. She’s the creative mind behind a powerful series of spotlighting African-American inventors, scientists, and trailblazers, beginning with Jackson’s magical adventure with black inventors and scientists, and Jackson and Kevin’s Black history Trip downtown. She’s also the author of Cameron Teaches Black History, published by Scholastic. Tamara doesn’t just write books. She writes history into our daily consciousness through her weekly black history column for the post newspaper, her podcast, once Upon a Time in Black History and Her Daily newsletter, she brings awareness, knowledge, and pride into homes and classrooms across the country.

She is the founder of Just Imagine Kids, a nonprofit that delivers afterschool and summer programs in black and Hispanic, Latinx history, steam and literacy. And she’s also built a professional development curriculum for educators to bring inclusivity into American history lessons year round. If that wasn’t enough, she owns and operates the Multicultural bookstore in Richmond, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Two vibrant spaces filled with stories that reflect the beauty and diversity of our communities, from black and brown narratives to books on disability, LGBTQIA plus voices, steam and social justice, and as if that wasn’t enough, she’s even building a micro school that centers black history, language, culture, and literacy for K through six students, offering everything from AI and steam to gardening and home economics. Tamara’s work is thoughtful, powerful, and deeply rooted in legacy building, and I cannot wait for you to hear more. Please help me welcome the phenomenal Tamara Shiloh.

I am excited every week to talk to just amazing, amazing people. And Tamara Shiloh is with me this week. She is another amazing, amazing person. Had the pleasure of meeting her through the producer of my podcast, the Jolly Podcast, and they are pro audio voices. So shout out to Becky Geist and Carlos and all the team over at Pro Audio Voices, and I am just excited to have you here because you have really just dedicated your life to storytelling, education and really empowering minds through history. I mean, it kind of bleeds out of you, which is so exciting for me. But I’m interested in finding out what kind sparked your passion for black history and multicultural literacy, because we can talk about how we have to defend it now, but what sparked your interest in doing it?

Tamara Shiloh:  Wow. Well, I’m going to give you the short version. We could be here all day because there were a lot of things that well not happened, but at any rate, it was an email that I received now, oh my gosh, time flies, right? 25 years ago, I guess, and it had a list of people, black inventors and scientists, and so, okay. At first I didn’t believe it, right? I don’t know. I didn’t know any of those names on that list. And so I went to the library to see if there were any books or anything. And actually there were a few, and I was totally shocked.

And then I got kind of angry because why don’t I know these people and my children, certainly they don’t know them. And my grandson was, he didn’t know them either. And so I decided to write a children’s book right there. I had been dabbling with Microsoft Publisher and making a few pamphlets for friends of mine. So I decided, okay, I’ll write a book. And then after I saw how many people there would be in the book, I knew it would be about five or six inches thick and the kid’s not going to read that. And that’s when I decided to write a series. And so actually, the series were little pamphlets because, well, they were books to me, but they were actually pamphlets because I didn’t know anything about publishing or any of that world. I just did my own little thing, and I actually did okay. I wrote five and I did okay, because folks weren’t so much caring about the aesthetics of how it looked. They were more interested in the information. Fast forward, I don’t know what year it was, 20 17, 16, I joined vapa. Okay. Yes. And that was a remarkable experience. The first day, I never know what overwhelm meant. I experienced it that day. It was so much information that I didn’t know. I didn’t know

It was, oh my God, such an eyeopener. And so then I was on a mission. I never missed a meeting for a year. I was there every month because it was so much to learn, and you didn’t feel like a dummy asking dumb questions, right? Because more times than not, whatever any question was asked, somebody in the room needed that information as well. And there were people from all walks of life in the publishing industry, illustrators, printers, authors, graphic design folks. So it was nice. And so that’s where it all began. And then the other things came out of all of that. Right? And BPA is Bay Area Independent Publishers Association.

Melyssa Barrett:  Okay. I knew there was another word. Another A RPA. Yes. Excellent. Okay. That’s great. I think community is so needed for us to nurture our gifts and make sure that we know the business. I think sometimes when people go into their own business, they think, I mean, they have to know so much, but you’re always learning. So that’s phenomenal.

Tamara Shiloh:  Yes. In this business, black history, because there’s always something that comes up. Someone will send an email and let me know something, or there’ll be a post somewhere, and oh my gosh. I mean, when I think about it, it’s just so incredible how they just think, we don’t need to know this, but Get it. I certainly know why, and they are absolutely right because all our knowledge and wealth, we could run this country a heck a lot better than what’s being done right now.

Melyssa Barrett:  No doubt. No doubt. Well, and you spend so much time in education. So how did that come about? Because I think you have your own curriculum, and let me just say, you have black history, Hispanic, Latinx history, you do professional development classes for educators, aside from your own podcast, your own bookstore, I mean, you kind of are a busy woman. How did this all come about when as you’re thinking in education? Because I mean, obviously there’s a lot of classes that don’t have black history in it, and so how did that happen, your focus on the classroom curriculum?

Tamara Shiloh:  Well, I’m not a credentialed teacher, but I know teachers, and when I do book signings, author book signings, there would be teachers there. And so the discussion would come up about, wow, I didn’t know this. It would be nice if I could teach my students this information. And so you hear it enough times and you have all the information. You just need it to create something that the teachers can use. And so one thing led to another. I did start writing my own curriculum and then teaching after school and in the summer, but I still do. Then I thought, okay, no, I did new teachers, what do they call it? New teachers classes right before school started a few years ago. And so I created a PowerPoint just to show them the resources out there for them to go and find information. And after each one those classes, the teachers were like, we could use a little more information.

How do you really put this into a lesson plan? And I thought about it and I thought, okay, I could do that. So I did, but it’s been held it into the classrooms because they don’t want to pay me for educating the teachers. And then some of the teachers will say they don’t have time. And so I know what that’s all about. So here recently, trying to get around that because a lot of teachers actually do want to teach black history. And because I have all these lesson plans that I’ve created for myself, I decided to bump ’em up a bit, make them more powerful, more information, and we created our own little videos. So we have about 10 of 18 lesson plans that have my actual videos on them, which are really cute. They’re just two or three minutes long, but about whoever we’re talking about.

So anyway, so now I’ve said, okay, well, why don’t I just create lesson plans that the teachers can use? They don’t have to do anything. I’ve done everything for them. The person, their picture, their invention, their bio bloom’s, discussion questions, vocabulary. It has quizzes, games. I mean, all they have to do is use what I’ve given them, and I send out a free one first so they could see what they’re paying for. You don’t really have to pay for lesson plans. They’re all over the internet, however, not what I’ve done and all in one package. And that was the whole point. It’s like I wanted to make sure that first it was easy to use and it is, and everything is just right there. So I just did that recently, actually. So I’ll send you the lesson plan that I send to everyone, so you can see. That’s awesome. Just a need you saw there’s a need. And I believe that if children learn the good stuff first about the inventors and scientists who help build this country, I think it won’t be so dramatic to hear about slavery and civil rights and all that, because they already know how great we are, right?

So it won’t be so devastating and they won’t be so angry. What age groups do you focus on? Well, I focus on however, the lets of plans are scalable because for one, I don’t care what grade they’re in, they haven’t been taught this information.

Most of it can be used for any group. I would say the quizzes probably have to bump them up a bit, and maybe the vocabulary. But from what I’m seeing with these kids, even high school, they could use those same vocabulary words. I mean, it is very scalable, and when they see it, they can see how they just add a word or two. I mean, it is not hard. So

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah. That’s great. Well, and I had the pleasure of going to a discussion in a documentary that we watched on evidence-based instruction. And I was surprised how many teachers were like, I went through four years of college learning how to be a teacher, and I came out and I didn’t know how to do evidence-based instruction. And so they’re doing a cohort here in my area to teach that to teachers, which is awesome. I mean, they get a stipend and all kinds of stuff, so it’s really cool. But I think there are so many schools, and even now we see such a focus on removing books, banning books, kind of erasing a lot of history. How are you dealing with that? I mean, you own the multicultural children’s bookstore in Richmond, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. How is that impacting, I mean, bookstores themselves are, I think, challenging in terms of the business model these days. How are you all focusing on that, and how does it relate to your focus on multicultural literacy?

Tamara Shiloh:  Well, contrary to believe the government can’t control what you buy, and they cannot erase history. If there’s anything that’s impossible, that is, yesterday was history. I mean, you can’t erase history. Even the thought of that, I mean, for some intelligent people to even say that, that’s crazy. And banned books, when they first got banned, we sold a ton of them. Okay. People wanted to know, well, why the heck is this book banned? So they would buy them to read them, and folks found out how ridiculous that whole thing was, or is, we just kind of move on. I don’t deal with that. It’s like you said, having a bookstore is challenging as it is. So

If anything, like I said, doing that big push for not selling band books, we all sold band books, right? I mean, yeah. So made the negative positive if you’ll, and so you just try to figure out how to turn things around. Like I said, history, trying to get rid of it. That’s insane mean. But the thing is, a lot of folks have jumped on that bandwagon, so you just don’t deal with them. And like I said, since I couldn’t get the principals or the districts to buy my professional development class, and I reach out to teachers with the lesson plans that they can do purchase and do on their own, and you just find a workaround out all that’s going on, even just past week, he announced or somebody did that, they’re not funding any more afterschool programs. I’m like, are you serious? And then I said, hold up. We got millions of philanthropic organizations and people who would be more than happy to help what we’re doing. So I mean, yes, it’s going to take a little work to find them, but all is not lost. That just means we have to work a little harder and work together a little better than what we do too. Right?

Melyssa Barrett:  That part work together part. That’s a big part, for

Tamara Shiloh:  Sure. Yes, it is.

Melyssa Barrett:  So that’s awesome. And so I do want to ask you, because I know you do a lot with just educating people on black history, history itself, I should say. I mean, we are history, American history, right? Exactly. But I know you try to bring out things that may not know about whether it’s black history or Hispanic history, and you also have your own book that you wrote, Jackson’s Magical Adventure, and it’s like a series, right?

Tamara Shiloh:  I have two.

Melyssa Barrett:  So tell me about how that came to be, and what are you hoping people take away from those books? Let’s pause for a moment. We’ll be right back.

Tamara Shiloh:  Well, Jackson’s Black History Adventure. Okay, the first one, the books are all themes. So this one was about going around the house discovering what black people either invented or improved. And I did things and I would use in vendors and scientists that people can relate to, that children can relate to using because we’ve done so much. Some of it I can’t even explain as an adult, because I mean those scientists with those long, what they did and the young man that created the camera up to look into space, I mean, I wanted folks to understand how much we did for this country. So when I was thinking about writing the books, it was making sure that I found those inventions or creations that we could relate to, and at the time it was that the kids could relate to as well. And so build a story around our building, finding the inventors around the story if I can.

So like I said, everyone is themed. So the second one is about him and his cousin going downtown. So as they’re walking downtown, they could see all the other things that black people have either created or improved. And so then there’s women, then there’s black cowboys, then it’s aviation, and then the arts, sculptors, artists that, and then music. Music will be composers, opera singers, the music that our children aren’t accustomed hearing a black person had anything to do with Beethoven or Bach, and we were doing things during the same time, and they knew some of the black musicians and composers back then. So it’s just when you talk about things that people can relate to, a dust pan, a mop, a refrigerator, a light bulb, they know those things. I do sometimes talk about microbiologists and astronauts because they’re important. Oceanographer, first of all, I had never even heard that word before when I found it before. And I’m like, okay, oceanography. And the other thing is to also remind them that these are careers that they might never would’ve thought about trying to pursue. When they know a black person has done everything, then there are no limitations, just because they don’t see them. We are doing everything and have done everything and are still doing everything.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yep. Yeah. I love it. And representation is so important. Oh my goodness, yes. I mean, I still remember my husband telling me when he went to the bookstore for the first time, and he saw a black person on the cover of the book, and he just was like, I mean, that opened his desire to just read and experience the language of the book. And he went on to be a professional storyteller, which was kind of oral tradition focused, but he understood the importance of literacy and reading and really expanding access to learning. So I think it’s phenomenal what you’re doing as if you don’t have enough to do. I know you’re also working on launching a micro school.

Tamara Shiloh:  That’s right. N Academy, we’re going to start this August, and it’ll be a K through six, but we’re going to start K first grade first, get our feet wet and see what interest there is. If it’s overwhelming, we may just change our mind and add a few more grades, but it’s all for the same reason. Our children aren’t getting educated, and every year there’s a reason. And so next year they’ll look at it and oh my gosh, it’s been, what, 50 years? We still waiting, and we decided, Hey, enough is enough. Sick and tired of waiting. So sick and tired of being sick and tired. So yeah. Yeah, we decided to do that, and we’re looking forward to it. It should be fun. And we’re going to have a really robust afterschool and Saturday school for those grades that we aren’t servicing during the day, during the week, and to help children with their math and reading comprehension, because that’s the biggest problem our children have, right. The bookstore. That’s why we are, all our books are face forward. So when kids, and it is an adult, we took the children’s off, by the way, so it’s just a multicultural bookstore and gifts, but all our children’s books are face, so when they walk in, they have the same experience that your husband had. They get so excited to see themselves on the cover. It’s just so amazing. It really is.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, it really is. But I know with your school, I think you said, if I remember correctly, you have a curriculum that is also going to focus on black history, language and culture.

Tamara Shiloh:  Exactly. That’s the theme of our school. All children are welcome, but they have to know on Fridays they’ll be wearing dashikis. I love it. So we’re going to teach Swahili and Spanish, and the curriculum will align with the California standards of the math, the English and all that. But then, like I said, we will be infusing, like you said, black history, black culture and black language, because we can’t.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes. I love it. I mean, because I think a lot of times there’s such a focus on one thing or one story, and I love the fact that you’re bringing in different perspectives. I remember talking to a friend of mine, and we were talking about something in California, I don’t even remember now, but they are Mexican, and they were like, well, before it was California, it was Mexico. And so he started giving me more history, and I said, sometimes we don’t think about the true history of just because a line changed. The history is still there. Exactly. And so I love the fact that you focused so much on this. I think you also created a bingo game, if I remember right.

Tamara Shiloh:  I did tell you. Oh my gosh. Oh, I wish. Yes. Oh my goodness. I’ve taken it to the next stage. It’s actually being professionally manufactured now. Oh my. Nice. A guy in Las Vegas, he and his wife, they have a game, and I went to visit Carol last month, was it last month? A month before left. Anyway, and they were there because they have a picture. I mean, they have a game that they want to put in the bookstore. And so they’ve been talking to Carol for about six months, getting that done. And when I visited, I was talking to her and I had taken, oh, I went for an event and I created the Historic West Side Bigo game, so we could take it with her to the event that we were going to the next day. Anyway, he was there and he was like, oh my God.

He said, well, do you have a logo? Do you have a name? I’m like, no, I mean, yeah, just what you see. And so he took it and ran with it. And so I have a logo. The name is Imagine Bingo, and it is the cutest. He just yesterday, he said, okay, here’s a cover. I’m like, oh, man. But I’ve still been selling what we did initially, right? Because I mean, every time I do something, I’ve created a Bingo card for it. Right? I mean, it’s just so much fun. Yeah. So we did Baby’s First Bingo babies, ABCs Lord, case Letters, ABCs, capital Letters. We have babies, the animals, and we have fruits and vegetables. So we have one for health and wellness, and black women in history, Hispanic women in history, Asian and Filipino women in history, and oh, Richmond history. But it’s only the black folks, which honest to God, I did not mean to do that. It was so funny. But I was on a mission, I guess, and so I’m going to do another one to be inclusive, if you will, right?

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes.

Tamara Shiloh:  Right. Someone pointed it out to me. I hadn’t even paid attention to the fact that the only thing on the Richmond History game were all black people.

Melyssa Barrett:  Well, this is how we create the inclusion. It was funny.

Tamara Shiloh:  So yeah, girl. Yeah, we’re on a mission. You’re going to be bingo and Wait, have you ever heard of Ebony Ley?

Melyssa Barrett: No.

Tamara Shiloh:  I told that guy, I said, he said they’ve been in business for five years. I’m like, I don’t get it. One, I own a bookstore, and we get stuff all the time. And two, it’s a black bookstore. And he advised me that you can’t buy the game in Amazon. You can only buy it at black bookstores. And so he was calling because he actually thought I was in Las Vegas, and to ask if he could put the game in my store. I’m like, of course you can’t. Right. And so they’re actually touring with the game. It’s a big deal in certain areas, right?

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes. E Oly, Ebony Oly. Yes. Okay, awesome. Well, I will definitely check it

Tamara Shiloh:  Out. Yeah. And I’ll send you, let’s see where you live, Tracy?

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes.

Tamara Shiloh:  Okay.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, I’m not far from you. I’m going to make it out there to Richmond though.

Tamara Shiloh:  Okay. We have open mic on the 25th if you want to come out. Okay. So Sunday, three 30 to five

Melyssa Barrett:  30. All right.

Tamara Shiloh:  Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The 25th of May. Yeah. This is a Saturday, right? I mean, a Sunday.

Melyssa Barrett:  I’m not looking at a calendar,

Tamara Shiloh:  But I

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes,

Tamara Shiloh:  Yes it is.

Melyssa Barrett:  Okay. So Sunday, May 25th. You’re doing a

Tamara Shiloh:  Open mic.

Melyssa Barrett:  Open mic. Well, I don’t know if I’ll be on the mic, but

Tamara Shiloh:  Oh, no, you don’t have to. No, it’s just a fun thing we do for the community. We have authors, we have singers, we have dancers, we have poets, spoken word folks. I’ve sometimes read little pieces from my book. Nice. You get your five minutes of glory, do whatever you want. And we serve food, and we have drinks, and yeah, it’s just a fun time for a couple hours.

Melyssa Barrett:  And tell us where you’re located.

Tamara Shiloh:  Two 60 Broadway in Richmond. We’re near Civic Center, the library, so you can find it. Broadway is 27th and McDonald’s. Yeah, pretty centrally located. We’re behind the Bay Area Girls Club facility, but I think they’ll be happy once they come through the gate. We have a lovely patio, a gazebo, and a big yard for the kids to play in if they want. Grassy. Yep.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love it. Family friendly. So bring a friend. Bring a friend does, I think. Absolutely. I love it. So tell me, and I know we’re probably going to run up on time, so I want to be respectful of your time as a business owner advocate for multicultural literacy. And I hope people take away You are multifaceted. I thought I was busy. People tell me I’m busy all the time. I’m like, I don’t think so. But I think the yardstick is different. I don’t know. So I look at people like you and I was like, man, I’m a slacker. So as an entrepreneur, what’s one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned along your journey, whether it be as an author, an entrepreneur, a business owner, an advocate, whatever. Is there something that, some major lesson that you’ve learned along the way?

Tamara Shiloh:  I think planning is really important. Instead of just jumping into stuff because it’s what you want to do and it is cool and you think people love it and all that. I think planning is key. You really have to know who your customers are, where are they? Are they in your city? Who do you think is going to keep your doors open and find all the resources out there? I say, I didn’t know. And I’m only recently learning about all the resources that small businesses have. Actually, this is small Business week, I think, nationwide, right? Yeah.

Just pay attention to that. And like I said, plan and do, get QuickBooks and do score, use Score, which is a free resource of retired everybody, retired lawyers, judges, retired folks who can help you for free. That’s why they’re there. I would’ve liked to have planned better. I would’ve liked to have did my homework, a little research on the business, because when we opened it Lala, it was wonderful. Everything was cool. And then I’m alone, but that’s okay. I got this. Right. But there’s just research, whatever it is you’re trying to do, and find out what other people are doing in that particular, maybe not the exact business, but do a little homework first and make sure you pay yourself. And I know, and everyone that tells me that too, it’s very difficult to do. But if you could pay yourself just by going to the barbershop or getting your nails done, or just something for you, because if not, then it’s like, dang, I’m doing all this and I can’t even get my nails done. Right. So you have plan and take advantage of the resources that are probably right there in front of you, but you don’t know what to ask. You know what I’m saying? But they’re there, and I’m just tickled to death. I’m about to show up.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes. I love it. And I’m not going to let you leave without giving us one of your favorites in history.

Tamara Shiloh:  Oh, gosh.

Melyssa Barrett:  And I know it’s a lot, but just throw out one,

Tamara Shiloh:  I’m just so amazed at the women. I mean the men, of course, but geez, they’ve done so much. It’s like the young lady, Alice Ball, who created the Cure for leprosy, I think it was leprosy. And then she died very young, not knowing what she had created. I mean, a lot of the women, I mean, it’s how we think Marie Van, Bri Brown, because her husband and her were chips in the night, and she was at home a lot by herself, so it was unsafe. And she was in Queens, and it was like, okay, what can I do? And she came up with the whole security system, Bessie Blanc Griffin. She had created a feeding machine for soldiers who didn’t have arms. And it was just incredible that her mind went there. And Bessie Coleman, that kid, I mean, she wanted to fly airplanes and United States wouldn’t give her a pilot or let her go to, so she had to go to France, but she did. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So we do so much as women, you don’t get a lot of cool rides credit. We do. And it’s a lot. I mean, I’m kind of biased with the women’s, sorry, some kind incredible things too, don’t get me wrong, because, and some of the stuff that they’ve done, it was like, sometime I look at Tiger Wood and I go, you know what mean? Somewhere in your 20 some years, you should have been talking about Dr. George brand and that golf team somewhere in something that you said, right?

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes.

Tamara Shiloh:  I mean, that was major for the golf world to invent a golf tee, right?

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes. Right. Okay. Well, and I love all the history. I mean, I think I just did a podcast with Emmanuel Waters who owns Old Hillside Bourbon, and they are doing a whole series on the women that were jockeys back then and their journey. I mean, it’s really awesome.

Tamara Shiloh:  What did you say? What’s the

Melyssa Barrett:  Old Hillside Bourbon company?

Tamara Shiloh:  Old Hillside Bourbon,

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes.

Tamara Shiloh:  Guess what? My upcoming fundraiser for my nonprofit is going to be Bourbon and Barbecue. What?

Melyssa Barrett:  Oh my gosh. I’m going to have to connect.

Tamara Shiloh:  Oh my goodness. Yes. We were kind of focused on Uncle Nearest, right? So Oh, we would love to have this

Melyssa Barrett:  Also. Yes. And Emmanuel’s close by, so he

Tamara Shiloh:  Might he

Melyssa Barrett:  Here show up? Yeah, he’s in the South Bay. Really? Yes. Yes. I will connect. You see, this is what happens all on air.

Tamara Shiloh:  That’s exactly right. Connect. We connect. I always told my friends that networking thing that you didn’t want to go to, and you did go every time you’re going to learn something that you didn’t know or meet somebody that you didn’t know. And every time it happens. That’s

Melyssa Barrett:  Right. That’s right. No, he’s awesome. I am sure you guys will appreciate each other.

Tamara Shiloh:  Oh, cool.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes, absolutely. So tell us before you leave, I know you gave your address for the two 60 Broadway.

Tamara Shiloh:  Oh yeah. Two 60 Broadway in Richmond.

Melyssa Barrett:  But also tell people how they can purchase your books or get connected with you. Okay.

Tamara Shiloh:  It’s the multicultural bookstore and gifts, and we have books for adults and babies, social justice, all the genres, most of them. And of course all the cultures. Hispanic, Asian, south Asian, native American, African American. And we have a website, multicultural bookstore.com. And if you don’t find it on the multicultural bookstore.com, you can go to bookshop.org and then find your support. On the left hand side, it says Support a bookstore and put your zip code or something. I think we’re probably your closest anyway. And you’ll see my logo, and you can buy books there also, if we don’t have it in our store. And the email is multicultural bookstore@gmail.com, and our phone number is (510) 322-4781. We’re open Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 10 until five. And on Tuesday and Wednesday, you can make a personal appointment to come into the bookstore on your own.

Melyssa Barrett:  Fantastic. I love this. I love it. So with that being said, I just want to ask, if you could have anything in the world when it comes to education nowadays, what would it be? What can you leave us with?

Tamara Shiloh:  They would be teaching ethnic studies when the child hits kindergarten.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love it.

Tamara Shiloh:  All through their career, learning about all people. I think it would make such a big difference.

Melyssa Barrett:  Such a big difference. I totally agree. Especially as we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. We got folks scrubbing websites and taking words out and all of that. But guess what? We’re still diverse and we still need equity and inclusion, right? Yes.

Tamara Shiloh:  And we’re going to get

Melyssa Barrett:  It. Oh yes. Oh yes. Well, thank you so much for all you do. Like I said, I feel like a slacker every time I talk to you or I see something about you, I’m like, wow, she don’t have enough to do.

Tamara Shiloh:  And ask my husband too.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love it. Well, it’s phenomenal. I mean, your entrepreneurship, your legacy, the impact you’re creating, the school, I mean, it’s just amazing all of the things that you’re doing. And I want to just thank you for what you do in the world. It definitely makes it a better place. And I’m all about the Kwanza principles, and so I’m excited to see what happens next. And I look forward to seeing the school open in August.

Tamara Shiloh:  And you’re coming here for something. Hope Bourbon in barbecue would be nice. It’s the end of June, the last Saturday in June. But I’ll make sure you have the info. We

Melyssa Barrett:  Are definitely going to make sure that we connect. I love the bourbon and barbecue idea, and I can definitely go for some barbecue. I’m going to drink some bourbon, but I definitely can make sure that I’m there. So I’m looking forward to it.

Tamara Shiloh:  Alright, well thank you so much for having me here. I appreciate it.

Melyssa Barrett:  I appreciate you. Thanks for joining me on the Jali Podcast. Please subscribe so you won’t miss an episode. See you next week.