Ellen DeGeneres Meets 11-Year-Old Marley Dias, Literary Activist

Empty Lighthouse is a reader-supported site. This article may contain affiliate links to Amazon and other sites. We earn a commission on purchases made through these links.

It's time for another amazing story on the Ellen DeGeneres show as 11-year-old Marley Dias tells her story about wanting to become a literary activist and create a campaign to send books to those in need.

The segment puts another notch in DeGeneres #BeKindToOneAnother campaign.

Dias told DeGeneres that while she can't watch her show because it airs during her homework time, she is on YouTube watching the video highlights.

Dias started her campaign in 5th grade because she couldn't connect with books like Shiloh that happened to be about "white boys and their dogs." She told her mother about the problem and both she and her mother started a campaign to collect books where black girls were the main characters.

Her movement is an attempt to diversify the books that are used to teach children in literary courses. The campaign uses the hashtag #1000BlackGirlBooks and Dias came up with it because of her knowledge of getting through to a larger audience on social media. The books will be given to primary schools and library in St. Mary, Jamaica, where her mother is from.

Dias loves reading and DeGeneres made a joke about reading. Her little guest also works in a lot of soup kitchens with her friends and wants to be a magazine editor for her own magazine when she grows up.

Dias raised over 700 books so far but DeGeneres being the generous host she is in partner with Shutterfly presented Dias with a check for $10,000 to get as many books as she can.

11-Year-Old Marley Dias tells Ellen DeGeneres her story.