Phan had volunteered for essential duties, including monitoring the parks that remained open, and had become busier than ever as people turned increasingly to outdoor activities. In January 2021, his work took him to central Kentucky, where NPS had recently acquired Camp Nelson, a former US Army base that was once a destination for many … Continue reading In Their Own Words
To Free the Captives was written in response to assaults on Black life and the racial reckoning this country was experiencing in 2020, but the book is mostly set in the past. Were there challenges to weaving the historic aspects with more personal narratives? It was hard for me to pull the past away from … Continue reading Newsmaker: Tracy K. Smith
Here’s what I found in my research—which involved 1,200 newspaper and periodical articles—when I looked into her story. After graduating in 1952 from the historically Black college and university of Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama, Lucy and her friend Pollie Myers decided to apply to the all-white University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Because neither identified … Continue reading Another Hidden Figure in Library History
A video librarian and researcher at Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Moore provides materials from the onsite video, photo, and audio collection to production companies, TV networks, advertisers, and private citizens with an interest in space and NASA. She also helps produce NASA’s social media content, segments for NASA TV, and science … Continue reading Bookend: Over the Moon
The American Library Association is committed to upholding our core values, which include equitable access to knowledge, social justice, and intellectual freedom. As members of a profession committed to free and equitable access to information and the pursuit of truth, we stand firm in opposing any effort to suppress knowledge, to label “controversial” views, or … Continue reading ALA Executive Board Opposes Censorship of Programs Addressing Racial Injustice, Black American History, and Diversity Education
“All our lives are compilations of stories,” he said. “As members of the American Library Association, you put stories into the hands of people in your community to help them learn, and grow, and expand their worlds.” At 78, Person noted, he has finally realized his decades-old dream of writing a book and telling his … Continue reading A Seat on the Bus
As a teenager in Waterloo, Iowa, she took an elective class on Black studies. “It was the first time I’d ever gotten any type of extensive instruction on Black Americans,” Hannah-Jones told viewers at the Opening Session of the American Library Association’s virtual 2021 Annual Conference and Exhibition on June 24. “Opening up that door … Continue reading At the Center of America’s Story
“I felt there weren’t enough stories portraying positive Black men,” says Freeman, director of Riviera Beach (Fla.) Public Library. “If people, mainly white people, saw us in a more holistic light, as fathers, husbands, and leaders, they wouldn’t automatically assume we are criminals, monsters, and demons.” To fill this need, Freeman created the Black Male … Continue reading Chronicling the Black Experience
19 Date in June when Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the US, is observed. The holiday is also sometimes called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day. 1865 Year that US General Gordon Granger arrived with 2,000 Union troops in Galveston, Texas, on June 19 with news that the Civil … Continue reading By the Numbers: Juneteenth
American Libraries senior editor and Call Number host Phil Morehart speaks with New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project and honorary chair of Preservation Week, about the project’s origins, her team’s research, and why community archives are vital to preserving history. If you have feedback for the podcast team, email us or … Continue reading Call Number Podcast: A Conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones
Speaking January 23 at the Opening Session of ALA Midwinter Virtual 2021, the pair described both the significance of the volume and the process of compiling it. It features the work of 90 Black writers—novelists, journalists, poets, historians, and philosophers—on different eras of the Black American experience. “We brought together a community of Black writers … Continue reading 400 Years of Black American Life
“Farming is an integral part of our national identity,” she told viewers from the Diversity In Publishing stage at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits Virtual on January 22. “Land represents freedom, independence, and self-determination.” But Baszile, herself a great-great-granddaughter of a farmer and beekeeper who lived near Tuskegee, Alabama, saw that Black … Continue reading Voices from the Land
