Turning African-American pain into activism: an analysis of the YA novel Dear Martin by Nic Stone

In the United States racism is a major issue as it has shaped African-American history and continues to impact American society. This study aims to explore systemic racism that nowadays African-Americans have to face, and how black social movements and activists organize their work and raise consciousness among young people. I will describe a path that goes from the origins of the civil rights movement and the figure of Martin Luther King Jr. to the recent movement known as Black Lives Matter. To offer a historical and social analysis of institutional racism, this thesis investigates the representation of the phenomenon in the novel Dear Martin by Nic Stone, which focuses on the life of an African-American boy called Justyce. Belonging to the literary category of Young Adult Literature, this novel is specifically aimed at teenagers, which have to deal not only with the typical problems of their age but also with virulent racism.