Join Your Local Library!

For the Literary-Minded and Civic-Oriented

Photo by Uladzislau Petrushkevich on Unsplash

After my efforts to unionize my bookstore were squashed, I struggled a bit to pick up the pieces of myself. Working on anything for a long period of time requires endurance, persistence, and a type of optimism that is very nearly indistinguishable from delusion. But organizing toward social justice ends is particularly draining and demoralizing, especially in today’s climate. I learned from my time at 350 Chicago that even small victories can take years to achieve, but only days to undo. So for anyone that’s ever tried to enact some change in the world, only to give up shortly thereafter, I see you and I understand.

But as terrible as defeat feels, stagnation is somehow worse. Because even while I wallow in my failures, I still retain a sense of pride that despite the authoritarian turn our world is taking, I at least did something. So after the union effort failed, and I’d spent an adequate amount of time feeling both angry and sorry for myself, I brushed myself off and started to plan what I’d do next. My opportunity came not long after.

I was reading my local newspaper when I came across this very interesting headline about my local library.

Hundreds Of Edgewater Neighbors Come Out In A Sea Of Rainbow To Support Drag Story Time

I had no idea that libraries were hosting such events, and could be the source of such political tension. Like many others I still had antiquated ideas of what a library is. A place you go to quietly read and check out books, and sometimes print a flier in black and white. But as I read more about the library and its local advocacy group, The Friends of The Edgewater Library (FOEL), I learned about the wealth of programming the space offered: movie nights, grief circles, literacy programs. Here was a free community space that combined both my literary and social justice interests all in one, I’m sure there was some way I could help them out.

In the brief couple of months since I’ve joined, I’ve become part of the communications committee, and have started to help out with their IG account. My goal for the library is to help increase awareness of everything the space has to offer. The Edgewater Library, and libraries across the country, will become increasingly important in the coming years. As the world gets more expensive, authoritarian, and anti-social, we need more free spaces, more community spaces where neighbors, organizers, and children can spend time alongside one another.

It’s imperative that we foster free, creative community spaces, especially in a world that thrives off of your fear and isolation. So to all my writer/artist/social justice minded friends, if you’re looking for a place to spend your efforts, I’d encourage you to start at your local library. If you don’t know where to start, then check out this project, For the People: A Leftist Library Project, for direction and resources.