1/29/2024 0 Comments Sandra model set 16Soto: So, within the first few months of the organization, we started having community conversations about what makes a book liberatory, what it means to be Libraries for Liberation. Bostonia: Can you describe the book vetting process? The books go out directly from the stores to the distributors, and then they put those books in Little Free Libraries. Soto: We buy from BIPOC-owned bookstores, and many of them are bookstores that are also cultural centers or nonprofits and do amazing community work that we want to support. And once we have the funding raised, we purchase the books through the BIPOC-owned bookstores that we partner with, and then we ship them to those volunteer distributors after they attend an orientation meeting. We always feel that people know their area and neighborhood best and what books people would want. They fill out a short form and choose the sorts of books that they think their community needs. Kalff: People can go on our website and sign up to distribute books. Q &A with Emma Kalff and Sandra Soto Bostonia: How does Libraries for Liberation work? Kalff and Soto spoke to Bostonia recently about their work and the power and influence books can have on their communities. When they aren’t running Libraries for Liberation, Kalff is an artist in Ridgeway, Colo., and Soto is a youth development coordinator at Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, a Boston-based organization that manages affordable housing and has a variety of programs that support the community. For this project, they received a grant through the Lucy Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit that supports BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development scholarships, grants, and programming. They also run learning communities that readers can join to discuss books virtually. In addition to book distribution, Libraries for Liberation facilitates conversations with volunteer distributors, educators, parents, and community members about which books would be the best fit for their cities and states. To date, their network of volunteers has distributed thousands of books in 37 states, with the goal of expanding to all 50. Davis, and The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López. Recently purchased titles: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. In July 2020, they officially launched Libraries for Liberation, which buys adult, youth, and children’s books that raise awareness of systemic racism from BIPOC-owned bookstores, and ships them to communities across the United States. “Emma had the idea, her dad had the funding, Alisa came up with the name, and then we sort of snowballed from there,” Soto says. Her friend Sandra Soto (Wheelock’16) saw the potential and brought in Alisa De Los Santos, a friend who knew a lot about nonprofit management. Kalff had a plan for those books: ship them to friends across the country so they could put them in their local Little Free Libraries. It was really just based on the books that I had read and loved.” “And so we just started buying sets of books. “There is a whole spectrum of books that affect people’s lives and change how they think and how they interact with people,” she says. She brainstormed with her dad and started thinking about what she was reading at the time, books that “moved her emotionally and intellectually,” says Kalff (CAS’15), including The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. They are BU alumni, faculty, and staff-of every race, ethnicity, age, and gender-and they are “Opening Doors” for the next generation.Įmma Kalff was moved to take action after the murder of George Floyd by police in 2020. They are breaking barriers-and then reaching back to help those behind them overcome the same hurdles. They are determined to use their experience, influence, and positions to help make their business, organization, and world more inclusive.
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