Reading and resistance – and how literature has always been linked to American freedom
My colleague Kelly Jensen, champion of banking documentation, connected me with the publicist of a librarian a few weeks ago. The name of the librarian was Rodney Freeman, and he made interviews and various other publications for his documentary on the American Black Library.
I entered the conversation knowing that I did not know much about the history of American libraries, and even less black American libraries, but when he and I succeeded, this lack of knowledge began to feel like a chasm. During this first meeting, I learned everything from the way in which the concentration of today’s public libraries on the community was copied from the model of black public libraries by Thomas Fountain Blue as a community resource, to the way a Titan in a black library – EJ Josey—took all the American Library Association for its continuous support for separate libraries in the 1960s.
I learned things that I was surprised to see that I had never heard of it, even during all my summer library years, to be a reader and to work for Book Riot.
But I also did something.
In all of this, all the struggle that seemed constant and apparently consumed oppression, the fight has never stopped. When the black community was deprived of financing and resources, other white communities had it, Thomas Fountain Blue made the public library a resource for everyone. And, when public libraries, which were supposed to be learning and progress institutions, perpetuate racism by segregation and other methods, black librarians have gathered to write resolutions and students organized demonstrations.
Literary activism
News You can use more advice and tools for the fight against censorship and other book activism!
Anyway, people have found a way to continue to make public libraries a resource for everyone. Addressing Rodney about the Library Fighters focused on the library made me think of all the other times in American history that civil rights were brought alongside literature and libraries. If we want to resume the foundations of this country, we see that there is a well -established history in America of literacy parallel to the quest for civil freedoms. For slaves who dared to learn to read, literacy was both a blessing that could lead to freedom and a potential death sentence if it was discovered. Despite this, many have still learned to read, just as black librarians fought over decades later – by supporting their community when they were discriminated against against themselves.
Then there are today.
As I write this, it has already been a few days since the Institute for Museum and Library Services (Imls) has been emptied, and a few days for ALA has pursued a prosecution against Trump administration for this. It is clear with this administration that the most recent war against books – which started with an increase in books prohibiting a few years ago – is a more important war against freedom, especially with regard to certain groups. It is not surprising that the most commonly prohibited books are by and on non -white and queer. They don’t want us to read on us, just as they didn’t want us to do it at the time. This is why, as at the time, we should do it anyway. We should do it more.
Not only that, turning to literature – and thinking of the history of library and literacy in this country – can show us how our ancestors resisted, which could teach us to retaliate now.
This is what this new series is: looking at the history of resistance through reading, we can become fortified in our current fight. Through articles, interviews, podcasts, and more, we will both come back the past to see how people have managed to go through worse moments and emphasize what people do now. We will explore all ways in which not only blacks have resisted oppression by literacy, but also to the way in which non -black, queer, Latin groups and other groups also have.
Because, as much as books, libraries and literature can be sources of entertainment, they can also be incendiary in the best way.
Stay listening for more entries in this series, which will strengthen your mind and even show you ways to join the resistance.
Presentation: reading and resistance – and how literature has always been linked to American freedom
A new series to strengthen your mind and even show you ways to join the resistance.
Listen to the imprisoned people in the first hand, why reading in prisons is so important
Being able to read while the imprisonment reduces recurrence, so why is it so demoted?
Censorship in prisons is part of the heritage of slavery
And books are vital for freedom.
The neglected history of Tougaloo nine and their reading of 1961
In the 1960s, Mississippi, nine black students brought their lives into play to fight for equal access to public libraries.
