National bestselling author and social justice strategist Rashad Robinson is bringing his latest book — and a conversation about who holds the power to create lasting change — to Buffalo this week.
Robinson will appear Wednesday at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library’s Central Library for “Movements: A Banned Books Week Conversation.” The event comes just over two months after the release of his book, "From Presence to Power: How to Take On the Fights That Matter—and Win."
Published July 28 by One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, the book offers a strategic framework for understanding how movements can build and use power. Robinson distinguishes between simply gaining visibility, or “presence,” and acquiring enough leverage to change the rules governing institutions and people’s lives. The book includes 10 core principles as well as case studies from Robinson’s experiences taking on Hollywood, Big Tech and the criminal justice system.
“In this kind of era of likes and retweets and social media followership, we oftentimes, I think, mistake the visibility, the speech at the march, the shout-out from the stage, the changed headline, for actually changing the rules that change how people actually live,” Robinson told BTPM News. “And so when I talk about power, I talk about the ability to change the rules, to force things to happen that otherwise wouldn't happen.”
Robinson has spent more than two decades working in social justice and advocacy. He led Color Of Change for nearly 14 years, helping grow the organization into a national racial justice advocacy group, and previously served as senior director of media programs at GLAAD. His work has included campaigns focused on corporate accountability, media representation, LGBTQ+ rights, public policy and criminal justice reform.
Robinson co-led a 2020 advertising boycott of Facebook and Instagram involving roughly 1,000 companies and was involved in efforts beginning in 2015 to change how local prosecutors approach criminal justice. He currently advises organizations and leaders on strategies for building long-term power and co-chairs the steering committee of the Committee for the First Amendment.
Robinson said he began developing the ideas behind "From Presence to Power" following the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. Over the years that followed, he said his experiences negotiating with corporate leaders, including Meta executives Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, helped shape his understanding of how institutions determine whether advocates actually have enough leverage to force change.
The book is intended not only for professional organizers but also for people trying to influence their workplaces, schools and local communities. Its exercises ask readers to consider where power sits, what resources they have and how they can more strategically pursue the changes they want to see. The publisher describes it as a guide for people ranging from political and social justice leaders to residents engaging their school boards, local governments or employers.
For Robinson, those ideas have particular relevance in Buffalo.
He said he has family ties to the area and remembers visiting the city while growing up on Long Island. Robinson pointed to Buffalo’s history of contending with questions involving working-class communities, race and belonging.
“The ongoing questions of who makes this city and who doesn't make this city, these are all part of the story that we are wrestling with,” Robinson said. “And this is why my book, I think, in this moment is landing so important because so many cities are like Buffalo, but also so many cities have their own unique flavor and juice.”
Wednesday’s conversation will also place Robinson’s ideas about power within the context of Banned Books Week.
The Buffalo event description draws a direct connection between Robinson’s work and questions surrounding who gets to determine which stories remain accessible. It asks not only what happens when books are removed, but who has the power to make those decisions and what it takes for communities to challenge them.
Robinson told BTPM News that the debate over book bans is, at its core, also a debate over who sets the rules and determines what stories are heard.
“They may try to ban our books, but we have the ability to turn that on its head,” Robinson said. “We have the ability to use their sort of power and their fight and turn it against them and build more. And libraries are such important, powerful infrastructure that we have to protect, we have to fund, we have to make real.”
Robinson also described libraries as personally important to him. Growing up without a passport until his 20s, he said books allowed him to experience places he had never physically visited.
“The library provided a passport to the world,” he said.
“Movements: A Banned Books Week Conversation” begins Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Mason O. Damon Auditorium at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library’s Central Library, 1 Lafayette Square. The program is free and open to the public, but registration is required. It will be moderated by BTPM’s I’Jaz Ja’ciel.
