East Side Freedom Library

In "Turnout," the architect and chief promoter of Minnesota’s high voter  turnout tells her story, showing how hard work and cooperation made the  state a leader in clean, open elections.  High voter turnout in Minnesota is no accident. I

t arose from the  traditions of this state’s early Yankee and northern European  immigrants, and it has been sustained by wisely chosen election  policies. Many of these policies were designed and implemented during  the twenty-four-year tenure of Minnesota secretary of state Joan  Anderson Growe.  

In inspiring and often funny prose, Growe recounts the events that  framed her life and changed the state’s voting practices. She grew up in  a household that never missed an election. After an astounding  grassroots feminist campaign, she was elected to the state legislature  in 1972; two years later, she was elected secretary of state, the  state’s chief elections administrator. As one of the nation’s leading  advocates for reliable elections and convenient voting, Growe worked  with county officials to secure Election Day registration (used for the  first time in 1974) as a Minnesota norm. She brought new technology into  elections administration and promoted motor voter registration. And as  an ardent feminist, she has encouraged and inspired scores of other  women to run for office.  

Joan Growe and co-author Lori Sturdevant will discuss the book and Ms.  Growe’s time in office with a talk that is part political history and  part memoir, and a reminder to Minnesotans to cherish and protect their  tradition of clean, open elections.

View the video: https://youtu.be/Cz2bM2ugc3I

A central mechanism of our dominant culture in the United States has been rendering workers and work invisible. As the old saying goes, “we don’t want to know how sausage is made.” But, as the labor anthem “Solidarity Forever” reminds us, “without these hands not a single wheel would turn.” The pandemic has had a complicated impact on these deep-seated practices and visions. Some workers, long disregarded, have been labeled “essential” and have been given new attention. Some have even received hazard pay (for a time) and new respect. But some have also spoken out about feeling “sacrificial,” and some have protested and even struck over their working conditions.  

Duluth-based visual artist Carolyn Sue Olson has used her imagination, skills and pastels to create a stunning collection of images of “Essential Workers.” You can see her work here: http://carolynolson.net/current-work-.... Carolyn sees an intersection between her work and the project of the East Side Freedom Library.   

Join ESFL’s Peter Rachleff in a conversation with Carolyn about her work and her concerns which have informed it. Through the end of this month, Carolyn and Lizzard’s Art Gallery (https://www.lizzards.com/) are dedicating 20% of the proceeds from the sale of her work to benefit ESFL. 

he East Side Freedom Library invites you to our December Labor History  Film Screening: Ghosts of Amistad with an introductory conversation with  historian Marcus Rediker.  

The uprising this past summer against institutional racism raised debate  and action about historical monuments and historical memory. These  debates and actions are far from over, and there remains much to learn  not only from history, but from struggles over “history.” The play  Hamilton ends with the haunting question, “Who will tell your story?”  

This documentary film chronicles the journey of historian Marcus Rediker  as he retraces the path of the enslaved Africans who rebelled against  their captors and seized the slave schooner Amistad in 1839, leading to a  watershed US Supreme Court decision that sparked Abolitionist action  leading to the Civil War. Based on Rediker’s ground-breaking book The  Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, the film  travels to present day Sierra Leone to visit the home villages of Sengbe  Pieh (Joseph Cinqué) and the other captives who were held on the  Amistad, interviewing elders about local memory of the case and  searching for the long-lost ruins of Lomboko, the slave trading factory  where their cruel transatlantic voyage began. 

The film uses the  knowledge of villagers, fishermen, and truck drivers to recover the lost  history of the Amistad, told from a seldom-voiced perspective in the  historical struggle against slavery.  Marcus Rediker is the Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the  University of Pittsburgh. He has written and edited ten books,  including The Many-Headed Hydra (2000, with Peter Linebaugh); two books  about mutinies and pirates, Villains of All Nations (2004) and Outlaws  of the Atlantic (2014); and two books about the transatlantic slave  trade and resistance within it, The Slave Ship (2007) and The Amistad  Rebellion (2012), which prompted this film project. His most recent  book, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First  Revolutionary Abolitionist (2017), reconstructs the life story of one  man as a way to interrogate political traditions and movements. Marcus’  pathbreaking writings have won numerous awards and have been published  in fourteen languages. Not only will he join us for a conversation about  the making of Ghosts of Amistad, but on Tuesday evening, December 15,  he will be joining ESFL’s monthly Labor History Reading Group for a  discussion of his essay, “The Poetics of History From Below.”

View the video: https://youtu.be/KZsgAT28924

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a live discussion of a new  novel, Passages of Rebellion, with author Fran Shor and discussants Bill  Tilton, Charlotte Colantti, and Sidney Carlson White.  

Passages of Rebellion is a work of political fiction set at the  University of Minnesota. It follows the semi-autobiographical  protagonist, Frank Goodman, in his antiwar and anti-draft activities  during the turbulent years of 1967-1970. The novel, moving back and  forth in time, considers the role of violence in the international,  national, and domestic arenas, while exploring the meanings of  rebellion.  

Fran Shor participated in the anti-war movement while earning his Ph.D.  at the University of Minnesota. He taught for forty years at Wayne State  University in Detroit, retiring as an Emeritus Professor of History. He  is the author of five nonfiction books and hundreds of articles. He has  been a longtime peace and justice activist. Appearing at almost the  same time as Passages of Rebellion is his new analytical book,  Weaponized Whiteness: The Construction and Deconstructions of White  Identity Politics (Haymarket Press, 2020).  

ESFL seeks to bring together readers from different eras and dimensions  of student activism. Joining Fran for the first round of conversation  will be Bill Tilton, Charlotte Colantti, and Sid Carlson White.  

Bill Tilton participated in some of the very events described in  Passages of Rebellion. He has been a Minnesota lawyer since graduating  from the U of M Law School with a J.D. in 1977. In over four decades of  practice, he has focused on personal injury and wrongful death matters,  and has won many awards. For over three decades, Bill has served as a  volunteer attorney for Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services.  

Charlotte Colantti graduated from the U of M in 2018, with a major in  Cultural Studies. She researched and wrote about the late 1990s Highway  55 struggle, and interned at ESFL. Charlotte is currently a tenant  organizer at the West Side Community Organization in St. Paul and is  active with a legal support collective for the movement against Line 3.

Sidney Carlson White, a native of the Twin Cities, is a senior at Yale University studying Economics and American Studies. He has been involved with fighting for reform in the financial aid system, and working to ensure that the university serves the city that its faculty and students call home. Sid recently hosted the ESFL’s “UnMapping St. Paul” Quiz Bowl event.

To view the video: https://youtu.be/y_F3iM5pDh8

Presented by University of Minnesota graduate students in Geography and  Professors Queen Quet and Kate Derickson  

In April 2018, a packed house heard Queen Quet, the elected chieftess of  the Gullah/Geechee nation, present “Free to Be Who WEBE: The  Gullah/Geechee Fight for Freedom and Identity.” If you attended that  presentation – or if you missed that presentation – you will want to  watch this presentation, not only to learn about the history and culture  of the Gullah/Geechee people, not only to hear from the remarkable  Queen Quet and her colleague and East Side Freedom Library collaborator,  Kate Derickson, the reader of “Stories for (Little) People” every  Saturday morning at ESFL, but also to learn about “a story map” as a way  of producing and presenting knowledge.  

Queen Quet is the Fall 2020 Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts at the  University of Minnesota and Dr. Kate Derickson is Associate Professor in  the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the U of M,  and together, they have been teaching a graduate course called “WEBE  Gullah/Geechee." Students in their course collaborated to create a St.  Helena Island centered StoryMap which provides a historical chronology  of the South Carolina Sea Island which has been home for centuries by  African-descended people who identify as Gullah and Geechee. In this  evening’s presentation, students will share the StoryMap and Queen Quet  and Kate Derickson will discuss the collaboration and respond to your  questions.

View the video: https://youtu.be/dN68Gj_xG4k

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to the final monthly  conversation of 2020.   

Throughout 2020, activist scholar Tom O’Connell has anchored  conversations which have sought to envision and shape the future through  engagement with the past. These conversations are archived on ESFL’s  YouTube channel and we encourage you to revisit them. Now, at the end of  this turbulent year, Tom convenes a conversation with three  Minnesota-based historians, all of whom use their training and research  as ways to guide us through the challenges of the present, with an eye  towards a better future.  

Shannon Smith is an Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at  the College of St. Benedict’s and the College of St. John’s. Her  research has focused on the use of military and police organizations to  quell rebellions and uprisings. This past summer, Shannon contributed to  public discussions of grassroots protests’ challenges to monuments and  entrenched power.  

Doug Rossinow is a Professor of History at Metropolitan State University  and the Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Doug’s research  has focused on social movements and political thought, especially the  complex roles played by religious ideologies. He recently edited a  collection entitled The Religious Left in Modern America.  

Jeff Kolnick is a Professor of History at Southwest Minnesota State  University in Marshall. His research has focused on social and political  movements, from Populist farmers in late 19th century Minnesota to the  civil rights movement of the 1960s. Jeff helped to found the Fannie Lou  Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy in Jackson,  Mississippi, and he has been a contributor to such Minnesota  publications as MinnPost, Minnesota Reformer, and MNOpedia. He has been a  leader in the Inter Faculty Organization, the union of Minnesota state  university professors.

View the video: https://youtu.be/ppRpFV_mZvA

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a conversation with Abdul Dire about his new book, Oromo Witness: From Ethiopia to Minnesota, one man’s struggle for his people, for his family, and for his freedom.

Join ESFL’s Co-Executive Director Peter Rachleff as he interviews Abdul Dire about his book, Oromo Witness. Dire has relied on oral history and story-telling to reconstruct the history of Arsi Oromo people in the Bale region of southern Ethiopia, from the late 19th century to the present, including their immigration to Minnesota. Abdul Dire, himself a descendant of leaders of the Bale revolts, recounts an epic saga of courage, resistance, perseverance, and sacrifice as told to him by his uncle, Hangasu Waqo Lugo. Oromo Witness brings to life the history of an extraordinary struggle for justice and equality through the lens of a participant observer.

Abdul Dire, himself a descendant of leaders of the Bale revolts,  recounts an epic saga of courage, resistance, perseverance, and  sacrifice as told to him by his uncle, Hangasu Waqo Lugo. Oromo Witness  brings to life the history of an extraordinary struggle for justice and  equality through the lens of a participant observer.  

The complex struggles of the Oromo people included the navigation of  transnational politics involving the governments of Italy (which invaded  Ethiopia twice) and Somalia (which sought to use the Oromo people for  their own purposes) and inter-ethnic politics which included Amhara,  Tigre, and other Oromo groups. Their intergenerational struggles,  stories, and aspirations are expressed in their motto: To root out  tyranny in all of its forms in their lifetime, or, failing that, to  raise a generation to finish the task.  Dire has made his uncle Hangasu the main protagonist in the book. Now in  his 60s, he’s one of the few remaining living witnesses of the Bale  people’s struggle. Dire has written a profile-in-courage of Hangasu and  those who inspired, shaped, and molded him. Hangasu’s courage, strength,  and endurance are awe-inspiring. In Minnesota, Hangasu has championed  education as a tool for liberation. He now builds schools and sponsors  young students. Oromo Witness can be a learning resource for all of us,  as we seek to understand the experiences and aspirations of our Oromo  neighbors.

To view video: https://youtu.be/YxC3x9x_nWw

The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society  invite you to our monthly “History Revealed” program, featuring Kao  Kalia Yang.  

As the country’s doors were closing and nativism was on the rise, Kao  Kalia Yang—herself a refugee from Laos—set out to tell the stories of  the refugees to whom University Avenue is now home. Here are people who  have summoned the energy and determination to make a new life even as  they carry an extraordinary burden of hardship, loss, and emotional  damage. In Yang’s exquisite, poetic, and necessary telling, the voices  of refugees from all over the world restore humanity to America’s  strangers and redeem its long history of welcome.  

KAO KALIA YANG is a Hmong-American writer. She holds degrees from  Carleton College and Columbia University. Yang is the author of The  Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir winner of the 2009 Minnesota Book  Awards in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir and Readers’ Choice, a finalist for  the PEN USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, and the Asian Literary Award  in Nonfiction. Her second book, The Song Poet won the 2016 Minnesota  Book Award in Creative Nonfiction Memoir, was a finalist for the  National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, a PEN USA  Award in Nonfiction, and the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize. The story  has been commissioned as a youth opera by the Minnesota Opera and will  premiere in the spring of 2021. She is now writing a series of  children’s books. For this event, before we open the virtual floor for  questions and comments from audience members, Yang will be joined in  conversation by four readers of her book:  

Saymoukda Duanphouxay Vongsay is an award-winning Lao American poet,  playwright, cultural producer, and social practice artist. She is the  author of the children’s book WHEN EVERYTHING WAS EVERYTHING (Full  Circle Publishing) and is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation  Playwright in Residence at Theater Mu. Visit her at  www.SaymoukdaTheRefugenius.com and follow her @refugenius.  Thet-Htar Thet (she/her/hers) is a writer, educator and activist  originally from Yangon Myanmar. Now based in her home country, Thet-Htar  is focused on education reform and identity-driven writing as a  consultant for UNESCO and a freelance creative nonfiction writer.  

Sangay Taythi is a Tibetan refugee born in India who with his family  immigrated to the United States in 1998. He has been a community and  labor organizer, including the Students for a Free Tibet chapter at the  University of Minnesota, the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress of  Minnesota, the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota, the Tibetan  National Congress and Tibetans for Black Lives and SEIU Healthcare  Minnesota.  Najaha Musse is a 4th year medical student pursuing a doctorate in  Osteopathic Medicine. Her family fled rural Ethiopia for a refugee camp in Nairobi Kenya, and then settled in Minnesota where she began formal education in the 3rd grade. As the oldest in a family of 8 children, she became the first in her family to graduate from high school and receive a college degree. While attending medical school, Najaha has focused on social justice issues pertaining to educational access for disadvantaged students and social medicine.

Join the East Side Freedom Library for a discussion with Victor Montori on his book on the politics of the healthcare industry, Why We Revolt: A Patient Revolution for Careful and Kind Care. 

 In a series of brief and personal essays, Why We Revolt describes what is wrong with industrial healthcare, how it has corrupted its mission, and how it has stopped caring. Montori rescues the language of patient care to propose a revolution of compassion and solidarity, of unhurried conversations, and of careful and kind care.  

Our conversation will be moderated by book industry professional and historian David Unowsky. The panel will be joined by Sen. John Marty, Nurses Association director Rose Roach and SEIU Healthcare Executive Vice President Jigme Ugen.  

John Marty has been a state senator since 1987. He is a strong advocate for government ethics, environmental protection, and universal health care. John is the author of the proposed Minnesota Health Plan, which would replace the health insurance system with health care for all, to keep people healthy and enable them to get the care they need when they need it. John is a graduate of St. Olaf College with a B.A. in Ethics. John and his wife Connie live in Roseville, MN.  

Rose Roach is the Executive Director of the Minnesota Nurses Association. She has thirty plus years of experience in the labor movement in Minnesota and California. A Minnesota native, Roach spent eleven years, from 2003-2014, working for the California School Employees Association and was an active leader within the CA health care policy reform movement. Roach has been recognized as one of Minnesota’s 100 influential leaders in health care. She is a board member for the healthcare justice organization Health Care for All-Minnesota.  

Jigme Ugen was born in Kalimpong, India and graduated from Delhi University with diplomas in Political Science, English and Economics. He is the first Tibetan refugee to be elected as a labor union leader. He worked in several non-profit organizations across the world before immigrating to the US in 2001. In 2007, he was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. Jigme is deeply engaged with the Tibetan community and Tibet’s independence movement.  

Victor Montori works at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (U.S.) as a diabetes doctor. He graduated medical school in his hometown of Lima, Perú, and completed postgraduate training at Mayo Clinic in the U.S. and at McMaster University in Canada. Considered “a patient’s doctor,”, Montori received the Karis Award, a patient-nominated recognition for his compassionate care. A researcher in the science of patient-centered care, Montori and his colleagues have authored over 650 research articles. A full professor of medicine by age 39, Victor is today one of the most cited clinical researchers in the world. In 2016, Victor founded The Patient Revolution.  Purchase your copy here from co-host SubText Books: http://subtextbooks.com/books/why-we-...

For more information and to view the video: https://youtu.be/ueEteQtD_tMo view the video: https://youtu.be/ueEteQtD_tM