___________________________________________________________
   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /   /
  /___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/___/
  |                                                           |
  |   .--.     .--.     .--.     .--.     .--.     .--.      |
  |  |    |   |    |   |    |   |    |   |    |   |    |     |
  |  |READ|   |GROW|   |THINK   |RISE|   |FREE|   |LIVE|     |
  |  |    |   |    |   |    |   |    |   |    |   |    |     |
  |  '----'   '----'   '----'   '----'   '----'   '----'     |
  |___________________________________________________________|
  |                                                           |
  |    "Reading had changed forever the course of my life."   |
  |___________________________________________________________|

The Library

A meditation on reading, transformation, and liberation

Today's Reading Malcolm's Journey On Reading The Dictionary Transformative Readers Reading as Resistance Reflect About

Reading as Resistance

The powerful have always understood that literacy is dangerous. Throughout history, restricting access to reading has been a tool of oppression - and fighting for the right to read has been an act of resistance.

During slavery, teaching enslaved people to read was punishable by law - because slaveholders knew literacy was liberation.
Frederick Douglass wrote: 'Learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy.'
Nat Turner was literate, and his rebellion terrified slaveholders into even harsher anti-literacy laws.
In Nazi Germany, books were burned - 'Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also.' (Heinrich Heine)
Soviet samizdat - hand-copied manuscripts passed secretly because ideas cannot be imprisoned.
During apartheid South Africa, many books were banned - people risked imprisonment to read.
The Freedom Schools of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement taught literacy as a pathway to voting rights.
Indigenous children in residential schools were forbidden to speak their languages or read their stories.
In many countries today, writers and readers face persecution for the 'crime' of ideas.

Why They Fear Readers

Books connect us across time to those who thought before us. They show us that the world could be different. They give us words for experiences we thought we suffered alone.

A person who reads cannot be told there is only one way to live. A person who reads knows that empires fall and movements rise. A person who reads carries the seeds of change.

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."
- Frederick Douglass