By Joseph Orosco (July 7, 2021)
During the Occpy Wall Street, groups of activists organized a spaced called the people’s library. Thousands of books and magazine were organized to be available for free to whomever wanted to come to the encampment and find literature and radical scholarship that could help them make sense of Occupy or the issues behind the movement. The People’s Liberary inspired dozens of other projects in across the country where local activists tried to make books and other media available as part of collctive liberation efforts When the encampment in Zucotti park was finally demolished by the police, most of those books were confiscated and ended up in the landfill.
We recently sat down to talk to someone who is working in Albuquerque New Mexico to build a project with similar goals and aspirations. Fiadh is an activist who has created the The People’s Library of ABQ. She has been an anarchist organizer in many different spaces for a while now, but within the last year decided to create a lending library of radical books and zines. The People’s Library ABQ describes itself as “a community project of leftist theory anarchist history and radial education. We have books about queer, feminist, antiracist theory, indigenous resistance, transformative justice, philosophy and revolutionary thought”
We sat down with Fiah to discuss her inspirations for the project and to learn how it works, and how she would like it to grow in order to offer works that inspire the radical imagination to a broader audience.
You can watch the full interview at our YouTube channel:
Or listen to the audio podcast on Anchor.fm:
The People’s Library of ABQ’s collection of books, e-books, and zines can be browsed here: https://radicalbooksabq.libib.com/
For more information about the project and how to support it, contact: thepeopleslibraryabq@gmail.com