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What crime did the first Black Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, commit? To Trump, who fired her in May, it was pursuing “DEI” and parading “inappropriate books." The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library. Its public 178 million-item collection includes Hayden’s Black and POC history initiatives. But there’s more.
Hayden digitized library resources — critical in this new age of AI and online misinformation. Employees fear a book purge, which would hamper research-informed policy. A purge wouldn’t be new.
After British troops torched D.C. in 1814, the Library of Congress emerged when Thomas Jefferson donated his multicultural collection of books. Slaveholders like him violently discouraged Black literacy. Fascists and Communists burned books. Fahrenheit 451 was based on Cold War censorship. Today, fascist attacks on educators, students, journalists, and librarians evoke 213 BCE, when one Chinese emperor burned all documents in his realm, so history would “begin with him.”
These histories are bibliocide. Scholasticide. Violent seizures of cultural memories, access, and desires to learn. The fist of policing and prisons will tighten, defining “safety” and “citizenship” for us while excluding us from both.
In 2015, Hayden chose to keep libraries open as Baltimore burned for Freddie Gray. Community spaces where knowledge lives are sacred. Preserve and share your books. Join freedom schools. Digitize information. Support Black liberation journalism and media. We are the gatekeepers to Black history and knowledge.