At just 11-years-old Marley Dias has created #1000blackgirlbooks. In this project she collects books with black girls as the main character. An undeniable awesome and important project!

On Tuesday she was at the United State of Women summit in Washington, D.C. Speaking in an on-stage interview with actress and activist Sophia Bush she talked about the abundance of these stories available and went onto say:

“I think it’s important to have someone who looks like you because when you have someone you share a very common trait with, such as race and gender in this case, you would see all these things that they’re learning and then you take that back with you to improve your lifestyle,”

She went onto say that relating to a hero, seeing yourself in them, helps you internalize lessons easier and helps you benefit from them. These role models are inspiring.

The project has already collected over 7k books and has been giving them away to kids around the USA. She is also on a literacy tour across 6 cities.

Dias says “if we want equity,” that we “we need diversity.”

Kudos to this girl!

You can see her speak at 10 hours and 22 minutes in the full summit video below: