Are You a Librarian? Black Librarians Share Their Experiences in Forthcoming Documentary
A unique documentary shares the challenges and accomplishments of Black librarianship
For as often as it’s spoken about as long-past history, the Civil Rights Movement was a relatively recent occurrence. Many of these battles are still being fought today.
Some people fighting those battles are Black librarians, working toward large-scale change one step at a time. Rodney Freeman is one such librarian, but he’s chosen to take a slightly different approach: publishing a documentary.
Are You a Librarian?
The documentary ‘Are You a Librarian: The Untold Story of Black Librarians’ tells the stories of Black librarians across the nation. Their struggles, their triumphs, and the ways they’ve left their mark are all covered. The ultimate goal of this documentary? To raise awareness of the important contributions Black librarians have made not just to their profession but to America as a whole. These contributions go unnoticed all too often, but this documentary gives them their chance to take center stage.
Freeman will delve into the rich history of Black librarianship in America, the ways Black librarians contributed to the Civil Rights Movement in the past, and the ways they continue to better society today. Are You ‘A Librarian: The Untold Story of Black Librarians’ is slated for release in 2025.
How to Help the Project
If you’re interested in the work that Rodney Freeman is doing, your help would be more than welcome. Marketing, creating, and publishing a documentary is challenging and expensive work, and he can’t do it alone.
He’s opened a GoFundMe page for the documentary with a $7,000 funding goal. If you have the resources to do so, we’d encourage you to send a donation his way to help him make a difference.
If you can’t afford to donate, though, there are still other ways you can help the documentary. Small indie documentaries like these rely heavily on word of mouth. If you have a phone, a social media account, and a minute or so of spare time, you have everything you need to help out. Share the premise of the documentary with your family, friends and colleagues. Doing so will help give Freeman the publicity needed to get his message out into the world. Check out our recent conversation with Freeman and Adrianna Bennett and Angel Truesdale of the production team.
Visit www.everylibrary.org to learn more about our work on behalf of libraries.
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