Our Approach

Libraries for Liberation is committed to financially supporting BIPOC-owned bookstores by purchasing books that raise awareness of systemic racism because we believe that racial and economic justice are intertwined.

“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

AUDRE LORDE

Libraries for Liberation provides those books for free to neighborhoods across the United States. Our network of volunteers distributes the books into Little Free Libraries because we believe that books can be a powerful tool in waking people up. 

“The greatest mistake of the movement has been to try and organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake people up first. Then you get action.”

MALCOLM X

Libraries for Liberation facilitates conversations with volunteer distributors, educators, parents, and community members to support consciousness development and inspire connection and action because we believe education paired with collective action can empower and transform communities.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

MAYA ANGELOU

Libraries for Liberation builds partnerships with community organizations that are working to dismantle systemic racism, with the intention of practicing solidarity, supporting sustainable work, and fostering hope because we believe it is our responsibility to each other and to ourselves to work towards collective liberation.

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”  

LILLA WATSON

The Libraries for Liberation team is committed to continuing our personal, internal work to develop a lifetime of praxis – critical reflection and action – because we believe that reflection and action continuously inform one another as we move toward transformation.

“Education [is]…the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

PAULO FREIRE