There’s no time like the present to start educating kids about race, racism, and social justice to teach them to be more accepting from a young age and to promote healthy racial identity development.
Disney Junior greenlit a new, animated short series, called Rise Up, Sing Out, that will consist of music-based shorts full of empowering messages about noticing and celebrating differences. The shorts are geared toward preschoolers and are designed to give parents a framework to start conversations about race and equality through music and relatable kid experiences.
The shorts will feature music created by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter from the musical group The Roots. Latoya Raveneau from Disney+‘s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder will serve as executive producer alongside Thompson and Trotter. The Conscious Kid, an organization that promotes anti-racism resources, is consulting on the series and will create a viewing companion guide for parents. The animation studio Lion Forge Animation (Hair Love) is collaborating on the production of the series.
“It is an honor to work with the Disney Junior team to help create a series of shorts that will empower and uplift the future generations in the way we know best, through music. We hope these shorts will encourage the young audience to recognize and celebrate our differences as human beings while learning the tools to navigate real-world issues of racial injustice,” Thompson and Trotter said in a joint statement.
Rise Up, Sing Out is slated to premiere later this year across all Disney Junior platforms.
