The Free Black Girls’s Library is Curating Cultural Consciousness

The imaginative and prescient OlaRonke Akinmowo had when she began the Free Black Girls’s Library in 2015 was radical in itself. Her New York-based library pop-ups — through which attendees take a ebook written by a Black girl and depart a ebook by a Black girl — work to eradicate internalized stereotypes.

“There are lots of totally different labels typically connected to Black womanhood and the library actually works to confront that narrative and present that Black ladies will not be a monolith,” Akinmowo says.

“There’s so many various kinds of Black ladies. There’s lesbian, bisexual, Black trans ladies from London, Cuba, Jamaica. Blackness is international, Blackness is expansive. Black ladies are writing about thriller, science fiction, well being and wellness, sexuality, politics, and finance. The library type of represents and amplifies that concept.”

What began as a grassroots challenge has morphed right into a motion. The occasions have taken place in barbershops, bars, artwork galleries, and cultural facilities. Akinmowo’s literary assortment has additionally grown into over 2,000 books by Black ladies. Though permitting readers to construct intimate relationships with one another has all the time been its core mission, current within the period of COVID-19 has launched a brand new set of challenges for its founder.

“A part of the aim of the Free Black Girls’s Library is to construct neighborhood, so working it has positively been difficult due to Corona. Due to Corona, we’re not capable of spend time with one another. Earlier than the virus, we might collect collectively each month and concentrate on a unique ebook, a unique creator, a unique style. So now we meet over Zoom and we’ve those self same gatherings and actually deep, stunning conversations about books, about poetry, about Black feminism, about security and protest, about well being.”

Akinmowo has additionally began a YouTube channel to attach with supporters throughout this turbulent time. “My YouTube channel continues to do the work that the library was doing earlier than Corona, which is to offer entry to Black ladies’s literature.” It additionally reinforces the mission of the library to advertise range, inclusion, and literacy.

“My channel consists of me studying a brief story by ladies writers after which sharing writing prompts and dialogue questions which are impressed by the story. Plenty of instances when folks consider Black ladies writers they’ll consider Toni Morrison, they’ll consider Maya Angelou. Typically they’ll learn about Alice Walker, however that’s about it. I’m attempting to focus on different Black ladies literary geniuses which are on the market.”

Patreon, she goes on to clarify, has been pivotal in sustaining the Free Black Girls’s Library.

“My patrons are the one cause that I’m capable of not go fully broke doing this. The library sequence could be very costly. I’ve to cowl storage for the books, I’ve a mailbox for the library, I’ve a workforce of volunteers that I purchase meals and supply transportation for. Patreon helps to cowl these payments.” Akinmowo additionally works exhausting to create content material particularly for these supporters.

“My patrons get entry to me in a means that nobody else does. I do yoga lessons and meditation classes twice per week only for them which are all impressed by a Black girl poem or an essay or a chunk of prose. We transfer by the observe in a means that’s actually good for everybody concerned. I wish to present my appreciation by giving them particular, high quality content material.”

Though she’s impressed by the popularity, success, and progress to date, Akinmowo nonetheless has lofty desires for her library. “I’ve a grand plan. I would love the library to turn out to be a authentic cultural establishment that is sort of a brick and mortar house the place folks can learn, examine, do analysis, use the web, have conferences. It will be each a working house and a neighborhood useful resource.” She additionally shares a extra instant aim.

“The opposite a part of that imaginative and prescient is to have a bookmobile. A part of the cash from patrons goes towards transportation. Each time I’ve to take the library to a location, I take Uber or Lyft. That may be difficult as a result of typically once they see a random Black girl standing on a nook with six bins, they simply maintain driving. That might save me cash as a result of the van could be each transportation and storage. I’m obsessive about these two issues.”

Because the Free Black Girls’s Library turns 5 this yr, Akinmowo is happy with what it has turn out to be and the chances of what it might rework into subsequent. She reiterates gratitude in the direction of her Patreon neighborhood and the way they offer credence to what she does. “There’s simply one thing very affirming about individuals who don’t know you personally financially committing to your concept as a result of they imagine in it. It motivates you to maintain going.” Finally, she realizes the true success of the Free Black Girls’s Libary comes again to the energy of the idea itself. “The library has all the time been this particular type of factor the place Black ladies are put ready of energy.”