ABSTRACT
As people around the world viewed the unconscionable murder of George Floyd, many library administrators and white colleagues looked to their Black library colleagues to respond to the social climate of 2020. Some Black librarians and archivists used this opportunity to affect a lasting legacy change beyond the “fatigue” that accompanies these societal injustices. This chapter features three African American librarians/archivists, indicating how they used their positions while navigating their identities to push for social justice through programming, outreach, education, and collection building. They take an ethnographic approach to the chapter that seeks to ground their work in their individual experiences. They share their experiences from the institutions where they work. This chapter discusses how each library responded to the 2020 racial reckoning and the history of systemic racism in the United States. They are all at predominantly white institutions (PWI), although the overall geographic environments are different, two in the South (Texas A&M University (TAMU) and Emory University) and one in the North (Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC)). Emory is situated in Atlanta, a predominantly Black liberal city, while TAMU is in a more rural and very conservative environment. BMCC is located in a liberal, metropolitan city.
