An estimated 200 people attended the 6:30 a.m. celebration on January 21 at ALA’s 2024 LibLearnX conference in Baltimore. This year would have marked King’s 95th birthday. More than 20 library leaders from across the profession took the stage to read passages from King’s speech at the 1967 National Conference for New Politics in Chicago, an … Continue reading ‘We Need the Doers’
King knew the difference between being dejected and being disillusioned, drawing the distinction often in his writings and speeches. While being dejected is a natural reaction to opposition, the latter represents the capitulation of hope. King knew well that hope is needed for struggle. That connection is important for those of us who work in … Continue reading Our History Is Our Protection
The celebration’s theme this year focused on King’s 1957 speech “Give Us the Ballot—We Will Transform the South,” which he delivered to 25,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom demonstration. The event was organized to urge the federal government to fulfill the three-year-old Brown v. Board of … Continue reading Voting Rights Are Equal Rights
“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
“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
Drawing parallels between the 1967 speech and the current realities of a divided America, the event’s cochair, LaJuan Pringle, cited in his introduction the tumultuousness of the previous year, including a global pandemic, increasing awareness of police brutality, and an economic crisis. Pringle, who is manager of Charlotte Mecklenburg (N.C.) Library’s West Boulevard branch, also … Continue reading The Other America
Hayden opened the conversation with condolences to Bridges for the loss of her mother, Lucille, who died in November from cancer. Calling Lucille her “guardian angel,” Bridges said her mother was a driving force and influence in her family. “She was a beacon for me and my siblings,” Bridges said. “She was adamant about having … Continue reading This Is Your Time
ALA Headquarters Move After 57 years on East Huron Street in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, ALA headquarters relocated to Michigan Plaza at 225 N. Michigan Avenue. ALA Welcomes New Executive Director Tracie D. Hall began on February 24 as the American Library Association’s (ALA) new executive director (ED). The 10th ED—and the first female … Continue reading 2020 Year in Review
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. About 698 per 100,000 of the national population are in some form of detention. According to a March 2020 report from the Prison Policy Initiative, the US criminal justice system detains almost 2.3 million people in various facilities in the US and its territories. Chief … Continue reading Defending the Fifth Freedom
Born in Mississippi in 1906, Robinson began her career as a librarian serving Black schools in South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana before settling in Alabama, where she initially worked for Alabama State College as an assistant professor of library education. In 1947, she helped organize a librarian section of the Alabama State Teachers Association, a … Continue reading Separate—and Unequal
Lewis, who served as a US representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district for more than three decades, was a friend to libraries and to ALA, for which he was a frequent speaker. His late wife, Lillian, had been a librarian, and libraries played a major role in Lewis’s early activism. He often spoke about how, … Continue reading Necessary Trouble
In 2013, to mark the launch of the first book in his graphic novel series, March (cowritten with Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell), Lewis was an Auditorium Speaker at the 2013 Annual Conference and Exhibition. Former American Libraries Senior Editor George M. Eberhart chronicled the memories Lewis shared at that event: “In 1956, … Continue reading Remembering John Lewis
