Freedom and Libraries
“Isn’t it awful not to be able to go to
a public library and get an interesting book
without being put out and given
a hateful look ”
“Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South”
I checked out this book, along with 5 or 6 others, from my neighborhood library in the Before Times. At that time, in late February, there was no way I could have known how dear that singular library trip would become to me. When I attempted to read this book a few months ago, I struggled to get through the introduction. When I picked it up again last week, it resonated on a totally different level.
Over the course of nearly 100 days of sheltering-in-place and thinking about the places and rituals I treasured and being forced once again to contemplate and process the U.S.’s legacy of anti-Black racism, I’ve been drawn to books that center things that bring me joy and libraries have been a consistent source of joy throughout my life. I’ve moved around a lot and one of the rituals that helps me feel like a place is home is getting my library card. My most recent one (shown), from the San Francisco Public Library system, is illustrated by the amazing illustrator, Christian Robinson, and I love that it shows a little Black girl reading.
At first glance, I didn’t understand the book’s cover image, but on closer look, it’s clear that at least one of the people is holding a shotgun: the image is of two men protecting a Freedom Library in Holmes County, Mississippi.
The short book highlights Freedom Libraries and the people who built them from imagination, determination, and sheer will and focuses on Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and surprisingly to me, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I had never thought about segregation in libraries, but duh, that’s what public life was before the hard-won success of the Civil Rights movement. This short, but potent, book introduced me to Freedom Libraries and the insanely brave young people who went down South to set them up during the Freedom Summer of 1964. In addition to introducing new Freedom Fighters to my pantheon, it situated familiar names such as Stokely Carmichael and Michael Schwerner in a different timeline and context for me. By the time I was finished reading, I had a somehow even deeper love and gratitude for my own literacy, my parents cultivating my love of books, and the critical role formal and informal libraries play in an informed society.
During a time when many cities will be facing unprecedented budget cuts, I hope individuals and communities will protect and defend their libraries by prioritizing their funding.
Libraries are worth fighting for whether literally or figuratively.
Recommendations
Research your city or town’s library budget and figure out how you can advocate for funding.
If your public library has a “Friends of [Your Town’s] Public Library”, like the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, become a member and get involved.
Volunteer for a literacy organization such as Reading Partners.
Buy books about diverse characters. Now and always.
On “Breast and Eggs”
“On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.
One is not born, but rather becomes a woman”
I haven’t read a lot of contemporary Japanese fiction, but after reading about Mieko Kawakami and reading the book review in the NY Times, I checked to see if my public library had it available in an electronic format and waited.
Originally published in 2008, but now available in English, “Breast and Eggs” explores womanhood, experiencing poverty, and self-actualization in modern Japan through small family interactions, female friendships, and motherhood.
Natsuko Natsu (who has to consistently reassert that her name isn’t a nom de plume), is a determined young woman who is continuing to flesh out how she understands herself, her body, and the world. In Book One, we meet Natsuko’s little family consisting of her older sister and her sister’s daughter. The mother is obsessed with getting work done on her breasts and the daughter is willfully mute. Throughout the awkward few days, each person’s role within poverty and in “womanhood” is explored. Some of the most devastating pieces of prose for me was Natsuko’s niece pondering why life has to be so hard as a poor person who is also a girl.
Book Two dives deeper into Natsuko’s interior life and her conflicting desires to be a successful writer and potentially to be a mother. Throughout this section, the tension of whether motherhood is noble (to whom) or worth it (again, to whom) is explored by a variety of characters and Natsuko’s world, and thus the reader, is opened up to people of different classes and options who view motherhood and being a woman in different ways.
I’m at the age where close friends and acquaintances are beginning and continuing to bring children into their lives. I brought my ambivalence about participating in motherhood to this novel, as well as, thinking about friendships among women. This novel will resonate with a variety of women at different life stages and offer a glimpse into the interior lives of the women you encounter through your casual encounters.
What Michelle Taught Me
I originally wrote this in 2017 for the website Heard Tell. With Netflix ‘s release of Becoming , thought I’d reshare.
The last break up I experienced happened this past January. I’m still processing it.
The relationship started off slowly, cautiously even. To be honest, I was unsure if we could take it to the next level, but we did and for the most part enjoyed eight years. Alas, some relationships have a natural end-date in sight, whether it’s a romance ignited by graduation, study abroad, or term limits.
That’s how I think about my relationship to the Obama years, and more specifically with Michelle Obama.
For whatever your (imaginary) relationship with Michelle Obama was, for however she influenced your life, there’s an essay for you in The Meaning of Michelle: 16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own edited by Veronica Chambers. This book, published in January 2017, shares 16 impressions of the myth, the woman, Michelle. I read it in March 2017, a mere few months after Former FLOTUS and POTUS took a well-deserved vacation to live their best lives. I initially read a review of it in The New York Times Book Review pre-Inauguration when I was probably still in the disbelief stage of grief. Not solely with the election results, or even with losing President Obama, but with the fact that Michelle, our Michelle, was leaving the White House stage after serving eight years. One of the essayists stated it best: “I would argue that she represents at least 60 percent of what America will miss most about the Obama presidency.”
The polls back Rebecca up. I don’t know you or your political affiliation, but there’s a good chance you liked Michelle Obama. With a Gallup approval rating of 68% in January 2017, I feel pretty good about that statement.
Maybe you thought of her as someone who kept it real, while her husband kept it professorial.
Maybe she reminded you of your best friend, your mom, or your favorite aunt.
Maybe you liked that she made eating vegetables cool.
Maybe she inspired you to dress like you gave a damn.
In Michelle, I saw a woman who I could aspire to, but also relate to. She was beautiful and accomplished, poised, yet familiar, and yes, after a history of First Ladies (and Presidents) whose life experiences, let alone skintones, did not resonate with me, Michelle did. Before Michelle, my favorite first lady was Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a politician, diplomat, and activist in her own right at a time when women were relegated to the domain of the home exclusively. She is unique in history not only because of her husband’s historic campaigns and elections (twice), but because she went to the White House and made it her own, while also making it more ours.
What did I hope to gain from reading the book about Michelle at a time like this? A reprieve from reality? A chance to reminisce about the “good old days” when Michelle was still our First Lady? To be affirmed that although Michelle was magic, didn’t mean she was any less real (word to Jesse Williams!)? Maybe I wanted validation that my t-shirt with white lettering that simply reads, “Michelle Taught Me” wasn’t stupid or overly emotional.
I share Roxane Gay’s’ sentiment from her essay: “Whenever I think about Michelle Obama, I think, ‘When I grow up, I want to be just like her. I want to be that intelligent, confident, and comfortable in my own skin’.”
I admired how she seemed to bring her authentic self to whatever room she was in and decided that I, too, would and could do the same. The collection was cathartic as the authors reiterated some of the innate qualities that made Michelle so magical. It was like being in a support group for other broken hearts. While I think it’s too early to tell the impact that Michelle Obama has had on a macro level, I don’t think it’s too soon to reflect on how personal her impact felt at the individual level. Seeing her in the press and on the world stage for eight years mattered.
Phillipa Soo of Hamilton fame stated it perfectly, “The Obamas have shaped my journey as an adult in a profound way.” In her essay, appropriately titled “Best of Wives and Best of Women” she uses her insight playing Eliza Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton’s wife to argue for Michelle’s place in the pantheon of political wives. Like the essayists in the Meaning of Michelle collection, I loved the Michelle who was shared with the public and took from this presentation (as real as I believe and need it to be) lessons that I’m only beginning to reflect on. I saw how she supported President Obama throughout his presidency and used that as a model for being a good partner to my beau while he studied for the bar exam. From Charlaine McCray, First Lady of New York to Marcus Samuelsson, a guest chef at the White House, each essayist shares how they interpreted Michelle Obama. The common theme of all of the essays was that like a Rorschach Test, each author saw in Michelle what they wanted or needed to see. Some saw and highlighted her grace in the midst of partisan and sometimes racial criticism, others saw her as an inspiration to working moms, and others the culmination of our ancestors’ wildest dreams. The constant theme is that she meant so much to so many. Tiffany Dufu, one of the essayists, explains it this way, “That is why she resonates. American society has a knack for punishing complex women. We like them to fit one mold. But because Michelle lives in the middle, no matter who you are when you look at her you see yourself.” She mattered internationally, but also intimately.
Similarly, at the end of a relationship, I want to know that it mattered. That I mattered in some way. That my time and energy and attention and hope and love, weren’t in vain. I want to see photos of Michelle and Barack on vacation and be able to smile wistfully and think of the good times. I want closure. For now, I’ll take solace in what she said in her own words in her last speech as FLOTUS that being our First Lady has been the “greatest honor” of her life … and that counts for something, doesn’t it?