Madeline Jackson testifies on libraries and displacement

Hello, my name is Madeline Jackson, and I live on the Lower East Side, and I would be preferred to stay home, but the library system essentially woke me up.

I think I was sleeping most of my life until I learned that there was a space where you can actually come and do presentations and learn about your history.

This is where I live.

Most people know about this symbol here where every time there is a rally, people go to.

The gentleman behind that is an African-American gentleman.

I live behind that monument, and I came to be involved in that because of displacement and trying to rally my community.

There was mention of the draft riots.

Little did I know after me organizing with my community, learning later, that the block that I stood on to take petitions to keep a building from being built where I live at, which is directly by the

Brooklyn Bridge Prime Real Estate, so I understand perfectly well what the panelists here are speaking of, because we're fighting very hard to keep our saying what we do with our public space.

But draft riots happened there as well, and I learned that history being previewed to the research libraries, which was always so very welcome.

I've always felt like if I needed...

It's something I can go to the research libraries.

I've had experience with not only the Schomburg, but the Center for Brooklyn History and the Performing Arts Library, where I also learned about the history of music, black music, and the importance of how it uplifts us and why we, as a people who are so oppressed,

gravitate to music and how it was used to uplift and bring messages.

And I think it's very important that also one thing that was not mentioned, I also used to belong to ASOLA, which is the Study of African American Life and History.

You all know these folks as the stewards of Black History Month.

The honor of belonging to that organization was that I had privy to information that ordinary people would not have had.

Time expired.

It is a membership organization.

You have to have $100 to belong there, but being a library member,

Having a library card gives me access to those same privileges that I would have had being part of a legacy organization.

So I thank you for having this.

It needs to be expanded to Wheatsville.

Wheatsville is not a research institution, but they hold a lot of information that connects the history of our black community, our oppressed community, to there as well.

Thank you.