“Think of yourself as a firefighter,” television correspondent Ali Velshi told the crowd of library workers. “You’re at the biggest fire you’ve ever seen. Your hoses don’t reach the top. Your ladders don’t reach the top. You’re not quite sure how you’re going to put this fire out, and someone’s gonna get hurt. … But you can’t leave. This is now your fire, and you’re going to fight it together.”
Velshi, who is chief correspondent for MSNBC and host of the TV segment Velshi Across America, shared this message during his June 30 talk at the American Library Association’s 2024 Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego. While discussing his book, Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, 2024), he highlighted key moments in his vast family history, shared his thoughts on book banning, and emphasized the importance of fostering immigrants in society.
Describing his inspiration for the book, Velshi said he turned to a throughline in his family history: the struggle for a better life.
“My family has lived this for 125 years,” Velshi said. “They have been in search, like many other people’s families have, of betterment, more fairness, of greater social justice. … [My family] grew up in South Africa, not enjoying rights by virtue of the color of their skin.”
For instance, Velshi’s father—who lived through South Africa’s apartheid era—didn’t know what a public library was until he left the country. “The dictionary that was designed by the apartheid government for Black students literally was designed to give you the most brief description of words that you would need to maintain your station as a laborer,” Velshi says. “By design, books were kept from people.” In the 1970s, Velshi’s family members immigrated to Canada, where they were able to improve their conditions.
Velshi noted that he chose the title of his book to “emphasize that we can save democracy in small ways, with each of us doing it, but they require a little courage.”
“I only exist because other people before me took up small acts of courage that said, ‘My responsibility is not to do my job and earn a paycheck. It is to leave the place better than I found it.’ And that should always be your responsibility,” Velshi continued. He added that librarians likely initially didn’t choose to become librarians to fight book banning, but became dedicated to advocating for intellectual freedom as a necessity: “The courage is in deciding to do that.”
Imploring librarians to remain strong in their fight against censorship, Velshi said: “Think of the individuals who become smarter, who follow an area of study, who stay alive because of books and libraries.”
