[ Music ]
>> Speaker 1: Sponsored
by the Institute
of Museum and Library Services.
[ Music ]
>> Liv Aspholm: Hi.
I'm Liv Aspholm, and welcome to
the 2021 National Book Festival.
I recently graduated from
Liberty Bell High School
in Winthrop, Washington.
And I served as a
student ambassador
in the spring 2021 grab
the mic tour with Library
of Congress national ambassador
for young people's
literature Jason Reynolds.
Today I'm interviewing Kekla
Magoon about her new book
"Revolution in Our Time:
The Black Panther Party's
Promise to the People."
Kekla, thank you for being here.
Can you tell us a little
bit about your book?
>> Kekla Magoon: Sure.
So I'm really excited
about this book.
It is "Revolution in Our Time."
This is the advanced copy.
And it will be out in September.
This is a nonfiction book
about the history and legacy
of the Black Panther party.
And most people don't
know that much
about the Black Panther party.
If they know anything, they've
maybe seen on snapshot image
of black men with guns and
berets and leather jackets
in the civil rights era.
And, you know, their reputation
has often been one of violence
and being scary and threatening.
And the truth of the matter
is that that snapshot image
of the panthers is
very, very wrong.
It's very -- one
very, very tiny part
of what the organization was,
what the organization tried
to be, what the organization's
goals and vision were
within the civil
rights landscape.
And so this is a book that talks
about the history
of black America.
So American history as told
through the lens of blackness
from the time the first
black people were brought
to the shores of this continent
against their will and up
through the civil rights
era in which leaders
like the Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King Junior
and Rosa Parks and tons and
tons of young activists,
teens and college aged people,
made moves for social justice,
for equality, and
against segregation
and police brutality and so on.
And throughout all of that
history, throughout all
of those protests, they were
consistently met with violence
from police, from white
supremacists, from society
at large, and from the
systems of our country.
And the panthers emerged
in 1966 out of Oakland,
California with the intent to
fight back in a variety of ways
against that oppression.
And so the panthers did
arm themselves with weapons
to defend their community
against police brutality,
but they also armed
themselves with education
and community activism.
They worked with unions.
They worked with tenants'
rights and housing rights.
They founded health
clinics and schools
and ran political education
programs, voters' rights.
They were a political party
running candidates for office.
And so there's this huge rich
dynamic landscape of organizing
that happened under the
umbrella of the panthers
and they met a huge
amount of repression
from the United States
government and from the FBI
in particular in response to
that community organizing,
those black people rising up and
saying, "We're not going to wait
for the establishment
to take care of us.
We're going to start
taking care of ourselves."
And that idea was
very, very threatening.
And we can see mirrors
of what the panthers did
in their time frame in
our own time frame now
in the black lives matter
movement and all of the protests
that have happened around
the country in recent years
in response to the
continued police brutality
and systemic oppression
that black people
face in our country.
And so this book is the
story of that entire history.
Where we've been.
How we got here today.
And how the Black Panther party
can be a model potentially
for the organizing that
still needs to happen today
and is happening in the
hands of young people.
>> Liv Aspholm: Yeah.
Obviously the picture
that was painted
of the Black Panther
party is not
at all what they
truly stood for.
So could you talk a little about
like why were you interested
in writing the book,
and did you really want
to express how they --
what their true goals
were within this book?
And how do you feel
like you did that?
>> Kekla Magoon: Absolutely.
That was definitely the goal,
to just paint a fuller picture
of who the panthers were
beyond that single snapshot
of black men with guns and
leather jackets and berets.
First of all, the organization
was more than half women
by the time it reached its
peak, and that's something
that very few people know.
And I -- you know, I found
out about the panthers
about a little over a decade
ago when I was a grant writer
in New York City and I was
fundraising for a program
that would provide food
for kids after school.
And so I was searching for
funders for this food program
for kids, and I ran across
an article about the history
of the Black Panther party's
free breakfast program
for schoolchildren.
And at the time I
didn't know much at all
about the Black Panther
party beyond
that snapshot that I described.
And so I thought, "That
doesn't sound right.
That can't be true."
The Black Panthers had
a free breakfast program
for schoolchildren?
But I'm a curious sort
of person so I clicked
on the link and I said, "Okay.
What's this about?"
And I read the article,
and my mind was just blown
by the information
about the panthers.
And I had studied the civil
rights movement my whole life.
I loved reading historical
fiction.
I could recite Dr. King's
"I Have a Dream" speech
that he gave at the
march on Washington.
And I -- I was ashamed and angry
that I didn't know anything
about the panthers, that I
had mistrusted that history
and that I had believed what I
had been told which was that --
about them which was
very, very limited.
And so I kind of just I got
really angry about the fact
that I could have gone to
high school and college
in this country and not
learned anything at all
about the panthers and the
real story behind who they were
and what they tried to
do for black communities.
And so that really fueled
me to write a novel.
And so my very first novel
which was published in 2009 is
"The Rock and the
River" and it's
about a boy whose father's
a civil rights activist,
and then his older brother
joins the Black Panther party
and my character feels caught
between these two seemingly
opposite ideals of change.
And of course he then
realizes that they're not
as opposite as he thought.
But when that book came
out a lot of teachers
and librarians were sharing
it with their students,
and I kept getting the
question, "We're so intrigued
by the panthers because
of this novel.
How can we find out more?
How can our students find out
more about the real history?"
And at the time there just
wasn't a good resource targeted
to teen readers about
the Black Panther party.
And so I actually
started working
on this nonfiction project all
those years ago to try to answer
that question and to
respond to that question.
And it's been a huge
project and, you know,
challenging to get published
because the perception
of the panthers is really
pervasive in our culture.
But that absolutely
was the intention.
I want to tell the full
story and share something
that wasn't shared
with me when I was
in middle school or high school.
>> Liv Aspholm: Yeah.
Within the book kind of
towards the end you mention --
I mean you interviewed
people who were actually part
of the Black Panther party.
Was there any especially unique
or interesting moment
during those interviews
that you could share?
>> Kekla Magoon: I think I have
met a wide range of panthers.
I've been to events.
I've watched documentaries.
I've met with some of them.
I attended the 50th anniversary
celebration of the party back
in 2016 out in Oakland where
the panthers were founded,
and at that time I did get the
opportunity to speak with some
of the original panthers and
the leaders of the party.
And I met with Ericka Huggins.
That was I think my favorite
sort of moment was having coffee
with Ericka Huggins in a
community center in Oakland.
And the moment -- the moment
that I remember specifically
from that interview that
was powerful to me was that,
you know, I was using language
-- so I said something like,
you know, oh -- you know,
"What do you think is the
most important, you know,
thing people should know
about the role women played
in the Black Panther party?"
And she just looked
at me and she said,
"Not the role women
played," she said.
"Women were the party."
You know, she said, "No one
would ever say what role men
played in something."
Right? She said --
>> Liv Aspholm: Actually
I underlined
that moment in the book.
I was like -- I was going
to ask you about that.
Like the women -- she
said, "We were the party.
We were such an --
we weren't the role.
We were the party."
Yeah. Sorry.
Go ahead.
>> Kekla Magoon: Yeah.
Absolutely.
And so I mean it was
like one of those moments
like I'm describing it now
even like I kind of get chills
and I got chills in that moment.
And of course I was -- you
know, I was really flustered.
I mean I was really
sort of overwhelmed
to be even talking with her.
And I, you know -- she was like
clearly sort of correcting me.
Right? In a very, you
know, "I am your elder,
and this is the way of things."
You know, sort of tone.
And I mean I simultaneously
loved that because I want
that education, right, and I
also was like, "Oh, my god.
I said something wrong."
And like, you know -- so I was
quickly trying to be like, "No.
No. No. I understand.
I understand."
And sort of trying to say, "No.
I really meant something else."
But after the moment, right,
when I reflected on it later,
I was just thinking about how --
just how powerful and
pervasive misogyny really is
in our culture because even
I who was deliberately trying
to show the role --
again here I am, right,
the role that women played in --
and deliberately
trying to do that,
and yet I still have this
sort of language internalized
that it is a separate thing.
It's a special thing.
It's, you know, I'm going
to do something separate
about the women.
Right? The party is one
thing, but then we talk
about the women in
this other place.
And so I did work really hard in
the book to -- to not do that.
I think that it's important
to address the many layers
and complications of gender
issues that arose in the party.
And I do that in the book, but
I also tried really hard to sort
of strip some of that
othering language and sort
of secondary language around
the women in the party.
>> Liv Aspholm: Women
were jailed.
Women led protests.
Women were leaders in the party.
It's -- yeah.
It's the same for both.
To that extent, do you --
obviously in this book you try
to do that to kind of
erase that misogyny part.
Can you talk about how
were women the party?
And can you talk about
how I mean they were sort
of a vanguard in that?
And can you talk a
little bit about that?
>> Kekla Magoon: Yeah.
So just in terms of sheer
membership numbers, you know,
later in the party the
just numbers of people
that were involved were
more strongly women.
And so it's hard actually
now to get accurate numbers
of who participated
for so many reasons.
Right? A lot of records were
destroyed in the police raids
and things like that, but also
people participated in the party
on a number of levels.
There were people who kind of
took an oath to be panthers
for life and that they
were giving, you know --
essentially willing to give
their lives for the party.
And then there were a lot of
people who sort of volunteered,
right, who came by
the community center,
who attended the political
education, who served breakfast.
Right? There were
lots of different kind
of levels of participation.
There were people who
simply shared the news
about the panthers,
people who sold newspapers.
Right? There were all
kinds of participation.
And so across those different
roles the majority of people
who participated were women.
You know, some people
say about half,
some people say closer to 2/3.
It's tricky to get
fixed numbers.
And so, you know, for me it
was looking at things like,
you know, the language the
panthers used themselves.
In the very beginning of
the organization Huey Newton
and Bobby Seale were talking
about the brothers on the block.
They were talking
about, you know,
they wanted to reach very
disenfranchised angry
frustrated, you know,
the system has let us
down young men specifically
like themselves.
And so they used this language
the brothers on the block,
the brothers on the block.
And yet, you know, one of
the first people to show
up to join the panthers was
Tarika Lewis, a young woman
from high school in Oakland.
And she, you know, was
ready to do everything
that they asked of her.
She was ready to do everything
that the young men
were ready to do.
And so, you know, she
was one of the people
who helped open up
the organization.
And as they went on they were
really clear about wanting
to create equality
within the organization
around gender issues.
There were many women who
were leaders of the party.
At one point Elaine
Brown was the chairwoman
of the entire party
taking Huey Newton's place
when he had to leave
the country.
And, you know, it --
it's complicated to try
to disengage the misogyny
and patriarchy of
our entire society
from the specific
experience of the panthers.
And one of the things that has
happened a lot is people have
specifically pointed to the
panthers and said, "Oh, look at,
you know, all of these
things that happened," right,
between individuals in the
party that evidenced misogyny
or evidenced, you know, violence
against women or evidenced,
you know, the patriarchy
and so forth.
Right? There were a lot
of things that happened
that fit that narrative.
But there are a lot of
things across society
that fit that narrative.
And so I think that the
panthers were not, you know,
more misogynistic
than anybody else.
In fact, I think they
were less misogynistic
and working really hard
to overcome misogyny,
but they were still steeped
in it within our culture
because that's the way that our
culture has been and the effort
to overturn that is, you know,
bigger than a single
organization.
And so it was -- I was looking
for a balance of talking
about the ways that women
led the organization,
the ways that women
were challenged
within the organization, and
the ways that gender dovetails
with the civil rights organizing
that we're doing
across the board.
>> Liv Aspholm: You mentioned
earlier when you were speaking
about the importance
of rhetoric,
when you were saying the
brothers on the block, what --
throughout the book there
were definitely moments
where rhetoric was
super important to kind
of cause a specific reaction
within the widespread
audience of America.
Could you expand a
little bit more on that?
>> Kekla Magoon: Yeah.
I definitely think that the
panthers were a vanguard
in that respect as well.
They had a really strong voice.
If you ever have the
opportunity to look at any
of their historical writing
or any of their newspapers,
they're using really
strong language.
Not necessarily, you know,
anything that we would call
like curse words, right,
or anything like that.
Like they weren't using language
that would necessarily
be censored.
Right? Like that kind of
language, bad language.
But they were using really,
really aggressive imagery.
They were using really sort
of striking propaganda art
to promote that rhetoric.
They did things like
calling police officers pigs
and drawing them as such.
They -- but they
also used, you know,
really specific vocabulary.
They talked about
avaricious politicians
which essentially means
greedy politicians.
And they used, you know,
other language like that
that was really,
really targeted.
They talked a lot
about oppression.
They talked about, you know,
systemic racism in ways
that Malcolm X had talked
about in the early 1960s
and the panthers picked
up a lot of his rhetoric
and a lot of his messages.
And I think it's hard in this
day and age when we look back
at that time to realize
how fresh and new
that discussion was at the time.
People were talking about
segregation in the 1960s.
People were talking about
prejudice in the 1960s.
People were talking
about discrimination
to a certain extent.
But people weren't really
talking about systemic racism.
The term racism,
the idea about --
the idea of certain
behavior being racist, right,
was not really something
that people talked
about until the civil
rights era,
until the panthers came along
and started talking about,
you know, essentially
racist pigs.
And using phrases like that,
like that term racism
and racist.
Were not as -- anywhere near
as common as they are now.
And so I think that there
are ways that the rhetoric
of the black power movement --
the panthers, but the black
power movement broadly speaking
advanced and changed the way
that we use language to talk
about the issues of bias and
discrimination and prejudice.
And yes, systemic racism.
Like that phrasing and that
like ideology, frankly,
is codified in a lot of the
Black Panthers literature
and a lot of the
writing about them.
And that's, I think, part
of why they were so reviled
because they were talking
about our power structure.
They were talking
about our government.
They were talking about the
systems that we are sort
of mired in that we can't always
see how they're operating.
You know, we are the
fish, and it is the water.
>> Liv Aspholm: Right.
Do you believe that the Black
Panther party ultimately
succeeded in their goal?
I mean I know they had their
10 point plan obviously.
I mean part of that is, you
know, end police brutality.
We see George Floyd.
We see Breonna Taylor.
It's not ended.
But do you believe that to a
certain degree they did succeed
in what they were seeking?
>> Kekla Magoon: I think
it's both a yes and a no.
I think that they succeeded
in a lot of micro ways.
They succeeded in
transforming a lot
of individual lives
within communities.
They succeeded in creating
a model for organizing and,
you know, this was
something that was functional
and successful in
communities around the country.
There are free health clinics
that the panthers founded
that are still operational
today.
They've just had their names
changed and become, you know,
separate nonprofit
organizations and --
but they're still serving
communities here in our country.
And so, you know, the panther
leaders have gone on to,
you know, continue the work.
They're, you know,
speaking and sharing
about their experiences and, you
know, taking a leadership role
in the social justice movements
that are happening now.
I think -- so I do think that
they succeeded in a lot of ways.
I think that they
changed the landscape.
I think that they moved the
needle on a lot of policies
that wouldn't have
otherwise happened.
Some of the policies that
happened because of them are,
you know -- were
intended to repress them.
Right? We have a lot more gun
control laws in this country
than we did before the
panthers were active.
And, you know, that is a
conversation that has evolved
in a lot of different
ways over time.
So but there are systemic
and long lasting impacts
of what they did that
we're still seeing today.
And at the same time they
weren't able to achieve a lot
of what they wanted to, and what
I think they could have achieved
if no one had stood
in their way.
But the fact of the matter
was there was a whole counter
intelligence program
operated by the FBI
that was deliberately designed
to undermine and destroy them
and give them the bad reputation
that they continue to have.
And so I think that they -- you
know, they succeeded in kind
of kicking the hornet's
nest of the U.S government,
but they got pretty badly
stung in the process.
And so, you know, I don't
think you can call their entire
movement the victory that
they hoped it would be,
but I think that
they definitely --
like we wouldn't be as far along
in civil rights progress
today as, you know --
if they hadn't existed.
>> Liv Aspholm: Could --
mentioning the government,
can you talk a little bit
about the counter intelligence
or COINTELPRO and its role in
the dissolution of the party?
>> Kekla Magoon: Yeah.
So the counter intelligence
program nicknamed COINTELPRO,
as you mentioned, was a program
that was essentially it
was founded by the FBI
to oppose communism and
socialism within this country.
And so they were very active
during the Cold War and trying
to essentially undermine any
organizations that were looking
to create social change
and looking to, you know,
sort of push the
government in --
to provide for the people in the
ways that socialism demanded.
And -- and it was,
you know, late --
mid to late '50s that they
were active pursuing some
other programs.
Some other communist situations.
And then organizations.
And then they turned
their attention
to the civil rights movement,
to the black power movement,
and the majority
of the COINTELPRO operations
ultimately targeted the Black
Panther party.
They also targeted the
American Indian movement.
You know, they followed the
civil rights movement leaders
like Dr. King as well.
Then they sought to undermine
the work that they were doing.
They specifically
wanted to prevent people
from joining the organizations.
They wanted to what they
called neutralize the leaders
of the organization.
In some cases that
meant discrediting them.
In some cases it meant jailing
them for a variety of reasons.
In some cases it
meant assassinations.
And they wanted to just disrupt
and destroy any progress
that was happening.
They did this in
a number of ways.
They used a lot of wire taps.
They used informants.
They paid, you know, people,
black people, to participate
in the organization and
then report to the FBI.
They made sort of
disinformation campaigns
where they would send letters.
You know, this was --
this was all before email.
Right? Everything was done by
letters and the snail mail.
And so they would fabricate
letters and mail them to people
to try to create, you know,
pretending it was someone else,
trying to create
tension, you know.
Oh, so and so's trying
to kill you.
You know, just a heads up that
so and so's trying to kill you.
You know, to create
tension between leaders
where there wouldn't have
otherwise been tension.
And, you know, it's the kind of
thing where, you know, today,
right, you can text your
friend and be like, "Hey,
you trying to kill me?"
But back then you
couldn't do that.
Right? Because your friend might
have been across the country
and you couldn't
just pick up a phone.
Right? Because it just wasn't
the way that things worked.
And so it was very I think easy
for them to create that kind
of distrust among the leaders.
And so they did that to
great effect, and ultimately,
you know, they fomented enough
distrust within the organization
that people -- it was hard
for the organization
to stay together.
And then, you know, they did
things like raiding offices
and burning things down.
And, you know, arresting
people constantly.
And I suspect also
some agitation.
Right? Like the panthers
are credited --
I don't know if credited
is the right word,
but they have been accused
of committing a variety
of crimes in their own name.
And they did some of that, but
also I think some of it was done
by police officers sort of
pretending to be panthers to try
to give them a bad reputation.
And so there was a
lot of uncertainty
around what the government was
really doing, but a huge batch
of records was released after
the panthers essentially ended,
and you know we can under the
Freedom of Information Act --
you can see a lot of the
paperwork and the memos
that went back and forth that
literally say things like,
you know, "We need to
neutralize these leaders.
We need to ensure that nobody
joins these organizations.
We need to do everything in
our power to prevent so and so
from interacting
with so and so."
It was just -- it was --
it's shocking, really,
given the fact that, you know,
what they were doing was feeding
breakfast to schoolchildren
and founding schools and
health clinics and --
that that was so threatening
to the establishment
that they literally went out and
had people killed and, you know,
stole food from little kids.
>> Liv Aspholm: Sort of
thinking about COINTELPRO
and how they had a role in kind
of, you know, skewing the image
of the Black Panther party
a certain way, what lessons
or what lesson do you
think interpretation
of the Black Panther
party offers
for the way we read
or relate to history?
>> Kekla Magoon: Yeah.
I think -- so I think what it
does is it illuminates the need
for multiple perspectives
on history.
You know, if J. Edgar Hoover,
the head of the FBI at the time,
was to write a history of --
in this era, he's going to
write it very, very differently
than Bobby Seale or Huey Newton.
Right? The founders of
the Black Panther party.
And so what has happened
traditionally, historically,
is that the people who have
been able to write history,
the people who have been
able to publish books,
the people whose word has
been respected in the media,
the people whose version
of history has been recorded are
white men with a lot of power.
Traditionally.
Broadly speaking.
Sure, we can point to exceptions
and examples going all
the way back, you know,
but by and large, right, the way
that we tell our nation's
history is through the lens
of relatively successful
white men
and what their experience
has been
and what their understanding
of our nation has been.
And so when you begin saying,
"I want to hear this story told
by a woman who lived
in that time frame,"
"I want to hear this story told
by a black person who lived
in this time frame," "I
want to hear this story told
by an enslaved person and
by a free black person
who were contemporaries."
Right? I want to hear this
story told by a child.
I want to hear this
story told by an elder.
I want to hear this story
told by an immigrant.
I want to hear this story --
you know, like when we look at
the facts, like there are facts.
There are things that
specifically happened.
Right? On specific
days at specific times.
And we can chart
that through history.
But there are ways to talk
about the things that happened
and why they happened
and how they happened
that are less empirical
than we have been taught.
And so it is -- it is
important, I believe,
to hear of multiple lenses
on every story from history.
You know. So when we look at
what the Black Panthers did,
every panther leader has
a slightly different way
of talking about what they did.
And I think that that's really
dynamic and interesting.
And by looking at
all of that together,
you can paint a picture of what
the organization was doing that,
you know, becomes a little bit
more empirical, but still is
through a particular lens.
And so it -- I think
that when we look back
at history there are a lot
of assumptions that we carry.
There are a lot of
narratives that we perpetuate
that might actually
have more layers to them
that might actually
have more nuance.
And, you know, we
owe it to ourselves
and to the young people that
we're teaching about the history
of our country -- we owe it
to ourselves to explore all
of those nuances and try to
understand what was happening
so that we can form our own
perspective on the history
of the country and how it
became the way that it is,
and really understand all
of the forces that led us
to the place that we are.
I think that people often
try to over simplify history.
They want it to be
a clean narrative.
They want it to be
a happy narrative.
They want, you know, to
pretend that there wasn't quite
so much bloodshed or
quite so much viciousness.
And all of that.
And all of that is part of who
we are and who we have been
and that we have to -- we have
to be unafraid to look at that,
and unafraid to confront
the things that, you know,
we collectively have
messed up really badly.
>> Liv Aspholm: Just
reflecting on the book, what --
was it difficult
to write the book?
What -- were there any
challenges that you faced?
Can you talk a little bit
about the writing process?
>> Kekla Magoon: Sure.
The - so the writing
process was many stages,
and was indeed very complicated.
The most complicated thing was
figuring out which narratives
to include because
there's always, you know --
to the point of perspective
on history, right,
there are so many things I
could have chosen to point to.
I'm covering, you know, 400
years of black American history
in the first 4 chapters
of the book.
There's so many people
I could have,
you know, chosen to celebrate.
You know, individuals that
might have a biography written
about them because of
their contribution.
I -- I had to choose.
I had to narrow down.
I had to summarize.
I had to, you know, find
the threads that carry us
through from the beginning
of enslavement all the way
through to our current,
you know --
through the [inaudible] complex,
through the black
lives matter protest.
Right? Like how do we
connect all of that together
in to a single narrative
that's going to make sense?
And so that was structurally the
challenge was to figure out what
that thread was going
to be and then to figure
out which examples to use
at every point along
that narrative.
And so it was very challenging.
I did a lot of research.
I traveled to a lot
of library archives.
I spent a bunch of time
in Oakland a couple
of different times over the
years at the Oakland library,
at the Oakland museum, just
kind of walking the streets
where the panthers had been.
I went out to the courthouse,
the Alameda County courthouse
where all of the free Huey
protests had taken place,
and kind of just like
stood on the grass,
right, to feel the place
And it definitely was, you know,
a labor of many years to try
to feel like I understood
this history
because it has been
so neglected.
And, you know, so
I really had to dig
for information in
the beginning.
In the last five
years, I would say,
much more has been
published about the panthers.
Must more has been
written about the panthers.
People are talking about them
in a way that they weren't
when I started this
10 years ago.
So it was very much, you know,
me with little white gloves
in the library archive like
going through newspapers
and watching obscure
documentaries that were,
you know, buried in
the library archives.
And I really enjoyed
that process.
It was fun.
I learned so much,
but I was trying
to knit together a narrative
that would illuminate the
organization for teens.
And be accurate.
Right? Be true to the
panthers experience and true
to the historical record.
And so that was the process and
then I basically had, you know,
reams of, you know, photocopies
of everything, and I just kind
of poured through
all of it and thought
about the big picture
narrative that I wanted.
And, you know -- and the
book ended up being longer
than I expected because in order
to really convey everything
that the panthers
were grappling with,
it's just it's a
lot of material.
So it was -- it was fun.
But it's a long book that
is actually really tight
for the amount of
material that it covers.
>> Liv Aspholm: Yeah.
I really enjoyed the book,
and I think it's incredible
that you were part of, you know,
uncovering the true history
of the Black Panther party.
I mean that's --
that's something that's
really incredible.
So thank you so much for talking
with me today about your work,
Kekla, and to the
viewers, thank you all
for joining the 2021
National Book Festival.
>> Kekla Magoon: Thank
you so much, Liv.
This was a wonderful interview.
I really enjoyed your questions
and getting to talk with you
about "Revolution in Our Time."
>> Courtney: Hi.
My name's Courtney.
>> Christina: I'm Christina,
and we're at the Library
of Congress today.
>> Courtney: This summer
we worked with teens
from across the country to
learn more about the library
and explore its unique
resources,
collections, and events.
>> Christina: This
building is so pretty.
>> Courtney: Yeah.
And it's open to
everyone to visit.
>> Christina: And you
can access its resources
from anywhere in the world.
>> Courtney: This
is your library.
Take it away, Emma.
>> Emma: Hi.
I'm Emma in Massachusetts.
The library's website has a ton
of digitized materials you
can access from anywhere.
Just do a search and
see what you can find.
Whether you're completing
a project or just looking
for a picture, the library
has hundreds upon thousands
of materials ready
at your fingertips.
You're on, Eti.
>> Eti: Hello.
I'm Eti from Texas, and one
of my favorite resources
on the library's website
is chronicling America,
a searchable collection
of historical newspapers.
I was especially
amazed by this one.
College students activism during
the civil rights movement.
This is a fantastic resource
for school research papers.
Your turn, Neena.
>> Hi. I'm Neena in Ohio.
Do you have an undying curiosity
about all things
past and present?
The library's website features
lots of research guides.
Like this research guide
about past Olympics.
Did you know that the Olympic
games were canceled during World
War I and World War II?
And the 2020 Olympic
games were postponed due
to the COVID 19 pandemic.
Now they're ongoing
which is great.
Take it away, Karen.
>> Karen: Hi.
I'm Karen from New Jersey,
and I found this film
of a gay pride march
from 1968 fascinating.
This was a year before
the Stonewall uprising.
There's so much to explore.
And if you love history
and you want to do more,
you can help transcribe
and tag documents
to make them more accessible
for others with the library's
by the people project.
>> Christina: As you can
see, the library isn't just
for people who live
in D.C, researchers,
and members of Congress.
>> Courtney: And it has
more than just books.
It holds newspapers,
photographs,
video and sound recordings,
maps, manuscripts, and more.
>> Christina: And the library
isn't just about the past.
It celebrates things
about today.
Every year the National Book
Festival features many authors
and the stories they
have to share.
>> Courtney: You can connect
with your favorite authors
and their work by watching
an interview or listening
to a podcast any time
or by joining a live Q
and A during the festival.
>> Christina: And there are also
live events here at the building
if you're in the
Washington, D.C area.
>> Courtney: So the Library
of Congress is your library.
>> Emma: Your library.
>> Eti: Your library.
>> Neena: Your library.
>> Karen: Your library.
>> Christina: Your library.
>> Your library.
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