by Abigail Olear
Existence is resistance. Being Black in America is an act of resistance to previous and current oppression.
That was the message of the fourth annual Black History Month Read-a-Thon on Tuesday at McKeldin Library.
Performing Arts Librarian Drew Barker read two speeches by Frederick Douglass that refute a white supremecist view of American history. He explores the duality of celebrating freedom while keeping slavery legal and asserts that Black people are not an issue rather America’s system.
Baker’s “powerful delivery made it impossible to ignore the outrage in Frederick Douglass’ writing in a way that a passive silent reading might not fully deliver,” said Charles Wright, the billing and accounts coordinator for UMD’s libraries.
Nneka Chisholm was equally as riveted.
“I think the human factor can always be missed out when you have it in writing,” Chisholm, the library’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer and co-host of the read-a-thon, said. “There’s something about people reading their favorite passage, reading something that means something to them personally, that they want to share.”
She shared a TED Talk titled “Bodies as Resistance” by Sonya Renee Taylor which outlined how self-love and empowerment can be used as a tool for social transformation.
“Sonya Renee Taylor really kind of spends a lot of time on the duality of physical body, how it’s perceived by others and how being in spaces is a resistance from the status quo,” Chisholm said. “It kinda really goes under that umbrella of the theme, ‘existence is resistance.”
Other passages shared included a letter from Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson, a lesson about the Black coal miners of America, a passage by James Baldwin and more.
The read-a-thon is part of the library’s Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Awareness Committee’s overarching goal to provide inclusive programming to campus libraries and surrounding communities. It aims to schedule events that honor various disparaged groups on campus.
Co-hosts Chisholm and Aaron Wilson, UMD Libraries’ government document coordinator and iSchool student, hope the stories shared at the event opened attendees’ eyes to a variety of Black voices and experiences.
“Oftentimes we neglect to realize there are a variety of viewpoints and we often see a single monolith of what these ideals can be,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter where you come from, the ideas that we share are often similar. It’s just having that position and that place where we can express those.”
Wilson and Chisholm left attendees with a final message from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2009 Ted Talk on African identity.
“When we reject the single story,” Adichie said, “when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”
Featured image: Co-hosts Aaron Wilson and Nneka Chisholm speak at the read-a-thon, aiming to create a space for attendees to share their excerpts, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. Photo by Abigail Olear.