VICTORY! Monteith Branch library will reopen next month!
Build the New Civil Rights Movement – Save Dr. King’s Vision for Detroit
There is Power in Our Numbers–Join BAMN
Now is the time for students, young, old and in-between, from Mason, Persing, Nolan, the churches, block clubs, neighbors and everyone to organize and mobilize to keep Lincoln Library open. Our fight to save all four branch libraries is succeeding. The libraries were supposed to be shuttered, stripped bare and boarded up in December, but the lights and heat are still on, and the vast majority of our books and computers are still inside. As of December 22, 2011, four libraries were supposed to be closed, but yesterday, that number went down to three, after our continuous pressure to keep the libraries open. If more people join the fight we can reopen the Lincoln Branch as well.
If more people join the fight we can reopen the Lincoln Branch as well.
BAMN and Friends of Monteith held an enthusiastic, youth-led picket at the Main Library on Tuesday, January 17, before packing the Library Commission meeting. Students from Catherine Ferguson Academy joined the picket with their own banner calling for all the libraries to remain open. BAMN organizers handed in hundreds of petition signatures calling on the library commissioners to vote to re-open the closed library branches.
The new civil rights movement achieved the victory of the successful vote to keep the Monteith Branch Library open by our uncompromising and determined actions in pickets, rallies, and the occupation of Lincoln Branch last month. Our focus must be to do everything in our power to make Lincoln the next branch to reopen.
If we mobilize our communities we have the power to determine the destiny of our city.
On Tuesday, January 10, Detroit City Council unanimously approved an emergency resolution to keep all the libraries open. The resolution calls on Governor Snyder and the Michigan state legislators to appropriate some of the more than one billion dollar surplus in the state coffers to keep our libraries open. The Detroit School Board and the Library Commissioners have passed similar resolutions. But only our movement has the power to get the money to Detroit.
If we mobilize our communities we have the power to determine the destiny of our city. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and the other great leaders of the last civil rights movement did not have the money or the support of any of the mainstream politicians. What they did have was masses of people prepared to act, and the determination to organize and win.
The fight to save our branch libraries can play an important role in building the new civil rights movement.
Dr. King understood that our strength is in our numbers. If we can get the people of Detroit to understand the power in our numbers again and to take direct action, we can build a new civil rights movement in our city that, like the civil rights movement of Dr. King, can defeat the rich and the powerful and the politicians who get in our way.
The fight to save our branch libraries can play an important role in building the new civil rights movement. If we use the power of our numbers, the people of Detroit have the power to make Detroit what we want it to be. We are the only force that can prevent the further destruction of our city and create a Detroit that serves the interests of the vast majority of Detroiters.
