Welcome to The Librarian Is In, The New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

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There's so much going on in the world right now and it's hard not to feel overwhelmed. This week Rhonda and Frank check in with each other about the world's events, how they're holding up, and discuss their recent personal reading selections. 

This week we also announce our next book club book. Instead of choosing a selection from NYPL's 125 Books We Love List, Frank and Rhonda have chosen a book from the Schomburg Center Black Liberation Reading List. We hope you'll read the book and tune in for their discussion. Finally, at the end of the episode Frank and Rhonda have some exciting news about upcoming episodes! 

This week Rhonda read Conjure Women, Afia Atakora's debut novel set in the South in the Civil War era.

Our next book club episode, July 2, will cover Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. We encourage everyone to read along with us! 

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

More things we talked about today:

• Downton Abbey
• Whitney M. Young Jr.'s speech to the American Institute of Architects, 1968

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Tell us what everybody's talking about in your world of books and libraries! Suggest Hot Topix(TM)! Send an email or voice memo to podcasts[at]nypl.org.

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Transcript

[Music]

[Frank] Hi, and welcome to the Librarians Is In, the New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, what to read next. I am Frank.

[Rhonda] And I am Rhonda.

[Frank] Yes, you are. You are Rhonda. Rhonda?

[Rhonda] Yes.

[Frank] Do you have other people in your family named Rhonda?

[Rhonda] I do not actually. I am the only Rhonda that I know of.

[Frank] It's such -- I don't know what I think of when I think of Rhonda. I think of like a tough girl.

[Rhonda] A tough girl? I think of maybe the 1950s. I feel like this is not -- this isn't currently like a very popular name. Or maybe it's just me. I feel like more people were named Rhonda a while back.

[Frank] Well, we both have that same thing. I mean, like Rhonda and Frank. I think I've said this before and I always say, it sounds like we should go bowling together in 1962, you know. Rhonda and Frank, we're like drinking beer and smoking cool cigarettes. I don't know.

[Rhonda] With our own personal bowling shoes and --

[Frank] It's sort of like Rhonda and Frank are very throwback.

[Rhonda] Very much so, very much so. That's so funny.

[Frank] I know. So, we were made for each other.

[Rhonda] It sounds like it.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] So, what is in the world of Rhonda these days?

[Rhonda] Oh, my gosh, you know, it's probably the same as what's happening with everyone else, you know, just the feeling of maybe almost being overwhelmed by all the things that are going on in the world right now. I don't know if you feel the same way, Frank.

[Frank] Oh, very much so. I mean, huh, you know, like we've talked a couple of times in the podcast just, especially in the last week, I can't really concentrate on anything but like world events, you know. I don't know, should I launch into my spiel?

[Rhonda] You know, what I'm thinking is like you're saying though, it's such an interesting, unique time period in history, I mean, to have like the social unrest, and the pandemic, and everything happening at one time, you know, it's so easy to just kind of really get sucked in and things seem to be changing every single day. So, I'm with you there, Frank.

[Frank] Yeah. I mean, it's momentous, it's truly momentous, I think. Especially -- well, not even -- I was going to say especially for us being in New York, but this is global.

[Rhonda] It is. You know, both of these situations are global, you know. And, you know, kind of, you know, I guess this is a really kind of good segue to talk about something that the New York Public Library has, you know, just accomplished. With all the kind of, you know, the civil unrest and the protests and trying to understand the history of what is happening, with the police violence and Black Lives Matter. Today, the day that we're recording, the Schomburg Center has just released a list called the Schomburg Center Black Liberation Reading List. And, you know, as librarians, one of the things that we want to do is really promote information, good information. I feel like people right now have a real desire to kind of read about the history and the background and kind of the cultural events that are surrounding what's happening right now. So, we created this list, you know, for our patrons. It's 95 titles which is not a random number, that correlates with the 95 years that the Schomburg Center has been in existence doing this kind of work, you know, preserving and promoting and sharing information about black culture, and it's available on the New York Public Library website. And it's a really interesting list because it kind of covers all types of genres, all types of authors, different time periods. There's science fiction books on there, there's James Baldwin, there's novels, there's graphic novels, of course, there's non-fiction, there's very current writers, there's poetry. So, there's all types of books to kind of understand the black experience and what's happening in the world right now for our patrons. And the majority of those books are obviously available electronically through the New York Public Library. And speaking about this list, you know, we have -- usually, every other episode, we read a book from the 125 List but this book discussion, we are going to do a book from the Black Liberation Reading List. And it is going to be Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. So, you know, many of you have maybe read it already and maybe you want to read it again or maybe you've never read it. So, you know, we hope that you will join us. That episode will air on July 2nd and also take a look at the Black Liberation Reading List on nypl.org. So, I feel like that was a mouthful.

[Frank] No, that was great. So, I guess you guys at the Schomburg were working on this list recently, like in the last three weeks.

[Rhonda] Yeah, definitely. And it was a collaborative effort. So, it was the director Kevin Young, and there were, you know, curators and librarians. And this is, you know, kind of just the beginning. There are so many books about this topic and, you know, the children's books that, you know, we didn't even get to. So, you know, this is just a beginning but it's a really great place to kind of get started and to see what's out there.

[Frank] Yeah, I mean, well, it certainly worked for me. I mean, like I said before, I started and stopped a couple of books this past couple of weeks. I read a couple of short stories, a ghost story by Edith Wharton I've read. I didn't really know what I wanted to discuss and really, like I said before, because of current events and the Black Lives Matter and the social movements and protests going on all over the world, I just kept being drawn back to that and wanting to understand more and more. And wanting to dive deeper more and more. This list couldn't come at a better time. I mean, so what I ended up reading for this podcast today is directly related to that list.

[Rhonda] Oh, great.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] I can't wait to hear about it. Should we jump in?

[Frank] We jump in, I mean, I don't know, do you want to go first?

[Rhonda] Sure, I'll get started. And you can really, you know, dig into the book. I'm excited to hear about that. And also, you may hear some knocking in the background, you know, part of being at home is that we have to hear the construction and everything that's happening. So, you know, part of being in New York City. So, I just wanted to put that out there. But I will get started. So, I actually, you know, I read a book called Conjure Women. I don't know if you have heard of this book yet, Frank. It is very new, it came out this year, 2020. It is a debut novel by an author named Afia Atakora. And honestly, I knew nothing about this book before I picked it up. And just by the title and the cover, you know, we both love art-horror. I'm thinking that maybe this is something a little supernatural, it could be right at my alley. But it, you know, it turned out to be not at all what I expected in a good way. And, you know, this was a book with a lot of layers. So, I may give like a few little spoilers as I talk about it but I'll try not to spoil it too much.

[Frank] All right.

[Rhonda] Again, the book is called Conjure Women. And it's about -- it's a story of a mother and a daughter. And the mother is May Belle and the daughter is Rue. And I would probably put this in the genre of historical fiction, maybe literary fiction because it's set on a slave plantation. And it spans a few periods of time. And the author calls them Slaverytime -- she does it all in one word -- Wartime, and Freedomtime. And most of it is set in Freedomtime. It kind of centers on the daughter who is Rue. So, like I said, Rue and May Belle are conjure women. And kind of what it means in this sense is that they're basically the doctors on the plantation for all of the black people who live there. They deliver the babies, they help women with, you know, unwanted pregnancies, they know what ought the plants do, how to make all the different medicines. And, you know, of course, kind of what's interesting here is that before modern medicine, when they had these roles of healers, that always kind of crosses the path with supernatural beliefs. And you kind of see that here as well. So, they can use the plants to, you know, maybe heal someone who has a fever, but then someone else may say, you know, can you create a binding spells so that my relative won't get sold away from me. So, there's kind of like this cross between like they're doctors but they also have these like other powers that people believe that they can do.

[Frank] Is this like -- you said historical fiction, but is it straight-up historical fiction or is there like an alternative universe element or like -- or is it historical?

[Rhonda] I say that it is historical. But, you know, one of the things about it is that it's such a tight focus. You know, and I can go ahead and jump to this part. So, like as I said, you know, crosses time periods. But the main part of it is set in Freedomtime. And basically, what Freedomtime is obviously the war is over and the Union army has come and burned down the big house and moved on. And the family of the plantation owners are all dead. So, basically what the formally enslaved people decide to do is they stay on this plantation and they create this community. So, they really don't have any contact with the outside, it's just, you know, all of the former enslaved people have created their own little neighborhood and home on this, you know, on their former plantation. So, it's historical but it's a very tight focus on this community, you know, they don't bring a lot of like outside events into it because it doesn't really impact what the characters are doing. You know, you hear about it when she gets into the other kind of areas but, you know, that's kind of like what their situation is.

[Frank] I'm just interested in -- if I'm incorrect, like the neologisms, the words you said like "Freedomtime" are created words by the author or historical terms?

[Rhonda] That's a great question. I don't know, I didn't look to see if that was a historical term. But, yeah, the author uses those as kind of how she breaks up where we are in the story. And it's all one word how she uses it. So, I think that's a good thing to kind of research. But that's kind of how she chooses to describe, you know, where we are. And, yeah, so most of it, like I said, is set in the Freedomtime, in this very insular community. And by the time we're in Freedomtime, May Belle has passed away and Rue is, you know, the only conjure woman. So, she's the only one who has the power to kind of heal and she's very young, she's only like 20, but, of course, she has this powerful position so she's very revered and the community takes care of her until this thing called the ravaging happens.

[Frank] Oh, my God.

[Rhonda] I know. And the ravaging is basically it could be a virus, it could be some kind of disease, but something happens in this community where all of the babies start to die.

[Frank] Oh, my God.

[Rhonda] I know, right. And what's interesting here is that Rue cannot figure out how to heal them so what you think happens is the community kind of begins to turn on her, you know, saying, you know, she can't heal our children so maybe she's a witch, maybe this is -- you know, when she goes out to get her plants, she's messing with spirits and the devil. And because, you know, they don't understand what is happening, you know, kind of like these old, you know, the witch trials and things like that, they're trying to find someone to blame. And she is the one, you know, who has the supernatural powers, so they believe. So, they're beginning to blame her for this. And she's kind of becoming, you know, put on the outside of this community. And then kind of a few other things come in that make the situation a bit worse for her, like this traveling preacher comes in who's very charismatic and people begin to kind of look to him as the new savior. And then she delivers this baby, it's not her baby but someone else's baby that looks very, very different. You know, it has like very jet-black eyes and the skin is kind of, you know, has like they say scales. And so, they think that, you know, Rue has kind of created this devil baby.

[Frank] Oh, no.

[Rhonda] I know. So, this is kind of where the word conjure, I believe begins to take on a new meaning because she begins to take a lot of really different measures, and some I believe are kind of very unethical, not to lose her place in this community. And also, to kind of protect this community. So, kind of despite some of the measures that Rue takes, you know -- and again, I don't want to kind of go into the different things that she does because I don't want to spoil it too much but just kind of know she really, you know, she kind of takes some really big liberties with people's lives and things like that to kind of put herself back into the position that she was. And you see her doing this in all different kinds of areas to protect them on the plantation, to protect her position, to protect the baby whose name is Beam, you know. So, despite kind of all these things that she does, you know, we kind of talk about like likable characters or, you know, how we feel about certain characters who make a decision that we may not agree with. But I kind of feel like she is a likable character even though she makes these decisions. And I think it's because she does it from this place of kind of caring and really trying to protect her community. And, you know, as a debut novel, I think, you know, slavery is such a heavy subject, I think one of the things that this author does really well is that the aspect of, you know, slavery and reconstruction, it doesn't really weigh the book down as I have kind of seen books written of this time. She clearly is good at showing, you know, the atrocities. And I'm not even going to get into the Slaverytime, the Wartime because there are so many layers and we definitely don't have time for that. But she's really good at elevating these characters and really showing kind of like what it must have been like to just be living in that life kind of day to day. And she's also very eloquent about addressing some of these really major issues. And one example I guess I can give is Rue has a relationship with the slaveowner's daughter, obviously during Slaverytime, Varina. And as children, they're really great friends and they take care of each other and they care about each other. And then when Varina is old enough to get married, she asks her father to give her Rue as a wedding present, right. So, even though they have developed this really, really close relationship, you know, she still sees Rue as her property. So, she's really great at kind of like addressing these very kind of nuanced issues and, you know, I'm not going to go on too long because I believe like I can only scratch the surface of everything that happens in this novel. And like I said, I haven't even gotten into Slaverytime or Wartime. And I don't want to give away too many spoilers. But as a debut novel, I did find it very impressive. And some people are beginning to compare her to Toni Morrison. So, you know, what can you say about that? But so, I'm going to end there. And I hope people, you know, look at this book because --

[Frank] Well, if you like Toni Morrison, here's a real like for you.

[Rhonda] There you go. A new voice, her first novel.

[Frank] What was the author's name again?

[Rhonda] Her name is Afia Atakora.

[Frank] The Conjure Women. And it also deals with the pandemic.

[Rhonda] Exactly. A small pandemic, exactly.

[Frank] Wow! So weird. I mean, that anecdote about how Varina and Rue are friends, like "friends" in quotes. But yet the structure around them, you know, makes that a lie in a way. Even though I'm sure there's genuine affection for each other. But when it comes down to the structure around them is that Rue is still property.

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] And I guess there's some introspection about that in the book about that relationship or it's accepted by Rue as just the structure of the society that they live?

[Rhonda] Yeah. And I think what's interesting about that is -- I guess the best answer to that is that it's complicated. You know, like when it happens, she is kind of like, "Really? Is she really going to do this, is she really going to try to take me away from my mother and from my community?" And at the same time, she's kind of like, "Well, you know, this is kind of what I should have expected." It's so, you know, she kind of has these mixed feelings.

[Frank] It's so interesting because like silly but I was watching -- they were showing I guess Downton Abbey on PBS and I was watching one of the last episodes when Anna -- have you ever watched Downton Abbey?

[Rhonda] I haven't. I know, I've never watched it.

[Frank] Oh, well, Anna is one of the housemaids like the lady's maid to Lady Mary who's like the wealthy daughter of the house and Anna is her maid. And they're very affectionate and, you know, within their social roles like they're very warm and affectionate to each other. And then, you know, plots develop, Anna gets pregnant, she's, you know, married and is pregnant, has a baby. And when she's dressing Mary, Lady Mary, her mistress basically, she -- her water breaks and she's starting to go into labor in her mistress' room like rich lady room. And Lady Mary is just like, oh, please, you must, you know, go into my bed and give birth and all that. And then she has the baby and when they have this like a very warm and loving sort of like the love-all-around feeling of goodwill like the masters and mistresses of the house are wishing Anna well while she's sitting at her boss' bed basically. And then Anna said something like, "I'm so sorry to be here." I mean, in that room. She was very conscious of the fact that she should not be in that room. Like it was sticking in her craw, so to speak. And, of course, the rich people are like, "Darling, no, of course, like you're Anna, you are our darling maid." And I was like sort of crying like because I love that show but in the middle of like crying, I was like -- because it was so warm and loving, I was like, wait a minute, this is so weird because it's showing this division. It's almost saying -- the show is saying in that moment there's a joy in accepting your social role. And if you can really live in that social role and be satisfied in it, we can all get along wonderfully. But when you zoom out of it for a minute and look at it, she's apologizing for doing the most natural thing in the world, which is giving birth, and should take importance regardless of who's giving birth. And she's apologizing for being in that room because of the social situation. And what makes you love it is that the rich people are like, "Oh, it's fine, its' fine." But like why do they have to even get approval, you know, when the important thing that's happening in that room is that baby being born. You know what I mean?

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] Sorry to like, you know -- I don't know.

[Rhonda] No, I think that's a really excellent example, you know, it kind of just happens across all class and social structures. So, you know, this story can kind of be shown in a lot of different type of areas, you know.

[Frank] I mean, I felt that like in life just like when you -- that joy oddly of being in a confined role sometimes when it's clear what you're supposed to do and what you're supposed to say and how you're supposed to interact. But human beings can't stay there for long and especially when it's an abusive role, when it's a role that's powerless or, you know --

[Rhonda] Exactly, yeah.

[Frank] Exploited, exploited, yeah. Anyway --

[Rhonda] Powerless, exactly.

[Frank] Yacksters. The Conjure Women.

[Rhonda] Yes.

[Frank] All right. Well, like I said like, you know, I couldn't land anywhere so I was because of the social protests and demonstrations all over the world, I mean, I don't even know how I got on certain things that I've read and that I wanted to discuss. One thing I'll mention is that I was reading a book, I've been reading a book called The Fire Upon Us -- wait a minute, is that right? Yeah. The Fire Upon Us, James Baldwin, William Buckley, and the Debate Over Race in America by Nicholas Buccola. It's about a debate that occurred in 1965 in England at Cambridge University.

[Rhonda] Yes, I've seen little snippets of that.

[Frank] You can actually watch the whole debate on YouTube. And Nicholas Buccola wrote the whole book about this event. And basically, the premise was the American dream built on the backs of black people. It says the American Dream at the Expense of the American Negro is the title of the debate. And then James Baldwin is saying, yes, it has. And William Buckley, a famous conservative, basically started conservativism of as we know it today, said, you know, no, it hasn't. And it's really an interesting book about this amazing event. I mean, you and I both know how eloquent and beautifully spoken James Baldwin and powerfully spoken James Baldwin is. By the way, spoiler alert, James Baldwin wins the debate, actually, the actual debate where the Cambridge students vote who won that debate.

[Rhonda] Oh, that's interesting. I didn't actually know that part of it.

[Frank] But then, you know, William Buckley said later like he was totally not -- he was fine with that because he gave no ground that he feels he put forward his point of view superlatively, which just to say, he said some stunning things, William Buckley in the debate where he basically says that in order for him to debate -- this is horrible -- to debate James Baldwin, he has to basically say that he's debating a white person.

[Rhonda] So he can believe in his mind that he's talking to someone who's like intellectual equal.

[Frank] Right. And goes on to say that -- he had gone on to say that the South, the white South should be allowed to remain the white South because the black constituents were not ready yet to be full-fledged citizens. And someone in the audience, clearly an American because it's an American accent, yells out, "Why don't you start with giving them the vote." Because the Voting Rights Act was ratified a couple of months later in 1965 that banned discrimination at the voting polls. So, it's very fraught and perfect for this time. I'm getting goose pimples just talking about Buckley but I won't say much more and that you can watch this debate and read this book that was written on this debate.

[Rhonda] Did you watch the debate, the entire thing?

[Frank] I did. It's about less than an hour, about 25 minutes each of speakers, William Buckley and James Baldwin, and an introduction. And each -- I guess to bring back debate actually, I sort of love to study debate because it had -- to actually debate the topic would be fascinating because each of the speakers, William Buckley and James Baldwin have a representative from Cambridge who put forward their point of view as well and introduced them to speak. So, it's sort of interesting that way. But James Baldwin was clearly the favorite in that room, 55 years ago, unbelievable. So, I was reading and watching that and then one of the things I came across in my sort of obsessive reading about what's happening now and wanting to find history, I found a speech written by Whitney Young Jr. who is an activist in the '60s and he -- black activist, and he gave a speech at the 1968 American Institute of Architects convention in Portland, Oregon, like basically to a room full of white men.

[Rhonda] You said architects?

[Frank] Architects, yeah.

[Rhonda] Oh, wow, okay.

[Frank] And, you know, I don't know what made me pause at this speech to read it but it does interest me in terms of how we build cities and how we build buildings to serve human beings. And because in his speech Whitney Young addresses, and I haven't seen him say this, I don't know if there's a video of it but I've read it. And he basically takes the room full of architects to a task that they failed, that they've completely failed in their civic duty to build cities and buildings that serve all people. Like, you know, he basically talks about, on one hand, how in the post-war years, subdivisions in suburbia were created for white people and 40-story -- as he calls them, vertical slum projects were built for black people. And what fascinated me as I kept reading this is that he's sort of addressing exactly what's being addressed right now like this institutional bias that everyone just took for granted as sort of the fact. But as he lays it out, you're just struck by the fact that this is over 50 years ago and he's calling out and targeting a specific group of people among many, like architects and saying here's where you're failing humanity, black people in particular. And then he talks about, you know, how the ads for those subdivisions, and I've looked up a couple of them, I think they were on the same site that I was reading the speech about these subdivisions like saying like, you know, "Own your own home and it's glorious, and you have to, you know, you'll have a yard and a beautiful house," and blah, blah, blah. And then at the bottom, it says clearly "No negros, no Jews." Blatantly right out there. And Whitney Young in his speech basically says how that first -- those labels "no negros, no Jews" was eventually turned into this is an exclusive community because it was understood by anyone reading it what that meant. Oh, my God. And anyway, one other point, I mean, you should read -- one should go and read this speech. It's a couple of minutes long but he then gives these great examples about the interaction of the races that I found so persuasive in terms of like why is this still happening. And it basically relates the relationship to actual human survival. Meaning, he said -- well, it says here, it says, "We see --" Because he is basically saying why change is taking so long. Like James Baldwin had said -- there's a clip on Instagram that's coming around about him saying, "How long does it have to take before we can be fully part of this culture." And Whitney Young says, "Oh, yeah, it's going to take a long time and it really is going to -- I understand you, white architects, how long it's going to take for change to happen. And then he basically is saying but change can happen really quickly. He's being a little tongue in cheek because he says, "We see this happening in Vietnam, white boys from Mississippi and Vietnam develop more respect and admiration for their black sergeant in one week because they too have made their own assessments and have decided to be liberal white boys from Mississippi instead of a dead white bigot. They're interested in the survival and the sergeant that's skilled in the art of surviving. And they say, Mr. sergeant, and they've changed overnight." And I thought that was really amazing. And to see how quickly you can work alongside another human being when your survival matters.

[Rhonda] Right. When you have to. And what year was this again?

[Frank] 1968.

[Rhonda] 1968.

[Frank] I think it was after Martin Luther King had been assassinated and before Robert Kennedy. But anyway, he finished this speech with the quote, an ancient Greek quote that says, you know, "We shall achieve victory and justice when those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are."

[Rhonda] Wow!

[Frank] Yeah, meaning like you don't have to -- like the Vietnam analogy, you don't have to be at death's door to actually belong, you just have to understand the indignation of another human being. And it's sort of this struck hard right now which it seems like with all the protests and the demonstrations that the indignation has reached critical mass with all groups of people and that our very survival depends on just fixing this freaking problem.

[Rhonda] Yes. And I think that's such an interesting choice because again like it's still something that people are dealing with today in terms of like fair housing and how does that really impact -- you know, people think it's just one aspect but it all kind of plays into what's happening right now. And I believe like Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a really great piece about, you know, the impact of like the GI Bill and fair housing in the New Yorker, not the New Yorker, the Atlantic a while back. So, you know, this is something that people are still addressing and still dealing with. So, you know, he may have written this, you know, knowing, you know, how long this -- again, how long this would take to change. And again, 1968 and 2020 people are still talking about this same issue, still struggle with the same issue, you know.

[Frank] And it just -- it's exactly what has surfaced for a lot of people, a lot of white people in that -- say like that thing of saying, oh, my God, like did society really intentionally separate white suburbia with the projects like, was that intentional. Because Whitney Young says basically this was planned. This was a planned thing, this was not an accident that arose overnight. And I'm like, "What!? How can anyone be so unfair?" Oh, my God. You're such a naive idiot.

[Rhonda] And you don't have to dig too deep to find those things like you just did. You just, you know.

[Frank] Yeah, it's fascinating. And so timely and anyway. So, that's really what I've been reading and wanting to understand and really go back into history, I mean, reading this speech was like it could have been -- he could have said it yesterday.

[Rhonda] Right, wow. I think you're not alone though. I think a lot of people are, you know, across the board really trying to figure out how we got here, you know. And I think a lot of people are really like trying to look back to see like what was it that got us to this point. So, you are definitely not alone in that, Frank.

[Frank] Yeah, exactly. And what he refers to which is especially fascinating now that budgets and city budgets all over the country and, you know, state budgets are coming up, he's talking about that allocation of funds to different aspects of social services which is the exactly the conversation that's happening right now. Like when I -- before I came in to discuss with you, one of the headlines was like, "Cities across the country are looking at their budgets to reallocate funds from police and put it into social services for people." And I was like that looks amazing to see how that develops. Oh, one more thing I wanted to say was just a little props to you and I to like an ego thing but it's not. But that's one of the reasons why I think I landed on this speech too because it was the architecture aspect which interests me and I realized that libraries, of course, if there's nothing else we do, it's one of the things we strive for. And I think if I can say that we very much succeed is to be those places that truly do accommodate everyone. And then when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Like you know who walks through your doors and the range of people that we deal with and talk to and help every day is enormous. And I just felt like, you know, after being closed for so long a revived feeling of, oh, I can't wait to get back and see how we can help.

[Rhonda] I think that's great. And I think -- another thing is to kind of add to that is libraries definitely are doing that today. The kind of, you know, again with this part of looking back at history to kind of see how we got there. Libraries now are doing wonderful work. But it wasn't always like that. Libraries, public libraries also had their issues too. That can be an entire, you know, podcast on its own. But the public library system was something that also had to evolve. And we did that a lot, you know, fast in a lot of other organizations and today most libraries are, you know, very open and we are for everyone. But that was also something that kind of had to really, you know, it took some activism to get that to happen as well. And there's been a lot of kind of really good books. And I talked about Freedom Libraries a way back but there are books that kind of talk about the entire history of civil rights and public libraries and activism of public libraries. So, luckily, you know, we were able to kind of move faster in the right direction. But that was a process also.

[Frank] Yeah, I appreciate that. And I'm grateful for the fact that we get to work in an institution that like you just said has moved faster, especially in the last 20 years.

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] And that to be a part of the future, I mean, just the messaging that our president Toni Marks has sent out has been incredibly inspiring to witness and to be a part of. So, ah, we love libraries.

[Rhonda] We love libraries.

[Frank] Anyway, thank you for listening to my --

[Rhonda] No, it's great. Those are some great resources.

[Frank] Thank you. No, like I had anything to do with them. But I was glad to read them. So, anyway, what's coming up? So, July 2nd, we'll read -- I do this all the time. Ta-Nahisi, how do you say his name?

[Rhonda] I've heard Ta-Nahisi. And I hope I'm not saying it wrong. We both could be saying it wrong. I don't know.

[Frank] Ta-Nahisi Coats Between the World and Me, we're going to read and discuss. Please read along with us. It's from the list Rhonda talked about, the Black Liberation List put up by the Schomburg Library. But also, to double your fun, we're also going to get -- we're also going to put out a podcast we recorded on June 25th. So, you're going to get us every week the next couple of weeks. And where we talk to a librarian from the NYPL Ellen about the libraries transforming the literary landscape, a reading list of trends and gender non-conforming related books for all ages in the New York Public Library's collection. So, you've got to look forward to that. So, like it or not, you're going to get us the next three weeks in a row.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] Rhonda is like bracing herself. I'm bracing myself. Just like I could deal with Frank for the next three weeks. Okay.

[Rhonda] And it's awesome.

[Frank] Yeah, it's going to be. So, anyway. All right. Rhonda, I wish I could see you.

[Rhonda] I know. Some day. This is going to all pass at some point.

[Frank] It will. And I've realized the importance of how like I was thinking, no, the library could say, you know, we just do this, you know, remotely. But I was like, no, there's something about being in a room and talking to somebody that I miss. So, I hope we don't continue to do it remotely and get lazy about this.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] Anyway, all right. Well, thank you. And thank you, everybody, for listening. And we'll see you next week and the week after.

[Rhonda] All right. See you soon.

[Narrator] Thanks for listening to The Librarian is In, a podcast by the New York Public Library. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play. Or send us an email at podcasts@nypl.org. For more information about the New York Public Library and our 125th anniversary, please visit nypl.org/125. We are produced by Christine Pharrell. Your hosts are Frank Collerius and Rhonda Evans.