(upbeat music)
- Hi everybody.
I'm Soledad O'brien, and it is my honor
to congratulate the six winners of the 2022
National Medal for Museum and Library Service.
Libraries and museums stand the test of time,
and as you'll learn today from the stories
of this year's metal recipients,
one of which was founded nearly three centuries ago,
these institutions are the lifeblood of their communities.
They observe and engage, they witness, and they respond.
Across our lifespans, libraries and museums
are impactful teachers, helping us see ourselves
and the world around us in new ways,
and our lives are richer, academically,
socially, and culturally,
not just because of what's inside their walls,
but what we take away from our interactions and visits
long after we leave.
So I hope that you'll join me in celebrating
the three libraries and three museums
that are the 2022 IMLS National Medals recipients.
Congratulations to each one of you. Thank you.
- Well, welcome to what is in essence
the reestablishment of the IMLS National Medals
for Museum and Library Service.
It's been over three years,
long, brutal years for all of us,
and we are so glad, so happy to see you,
to be here with you to celebrate
what you have done for your communities,
and indeed for our country.
We are met in a historic house, Anderson House,
the home of the order of the Cincinnati,
a fraternal, hereditary,
hereditary through the first born male,
this may sound familiar to some of you
who know some of our history, patriotic society,
our first patriotic society, devoted to the remembrance
of the American Revolution
and its exalted rights and liberties.
As we face in our country today, as you all do,
and you are all doing it and doing it,
I think brilliantly and in the right ways,
we'll get into a polarized nation today.
Very great difficulties, people trying to ban books,
people assaulting statues and paintings.
This might have seemed familiar to the founding generation.
They were at it pretty hard and heavy too,
in many ways, as was Lincoln's generation of course.
We did fight a civil war once,
which is probably a little worse
than what we're facing today.
So we might take solace in that,
or maybe we don't take solace in that.
Maybe we think it's going in that direction,
but under the themes of the rights and obligation
of citizenship, which is certainly a theme
that we are going to have as we walk forward at the IMLS,
and the need for an enlightened and informed citizenry,
which the founders universally wanted, expected,
and thought was the only ultimate salvation of the Republic,
I want to explore what we as libraries and museums,
as the cultural leadership of this country can do,
and in the case of our medalists,
are doing, have done for our country.
The IMLS is a part of America250,
the commission established by Congress
to commemorate the 250th anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence.
We want to begin thinking about the conversations
we can have in our libraries and museums
that can help us preserve the spirit of Liberty
in our republican experiment,
and provide for new and reinvigorated pathways
that we can take together,
together with our communities,
together with everyone in our communities,
in the pursuit of happiness.
But I wanna leap forward now to the past two years
to talk about our place in the arc of justice,
what we are almost religiously calling equity today,
religiously, relentlessly, and not unwelcome for all that.
If we get it right, equity is about justice.
It's about fairness.
Justice and fairness are hard to define and harder to do.
The library is a center of response in the pandemic.
In Wilmington, of course, the statewide literacy focus,
and they pioneered the Barbershop Library.
Throughout the library world, libraries in,
popup libraries in places like laundromats and barber shops
and buses and street corners,
the return of book mobiles, technologically enabled,
has been a revolution in outreach to the people
who need that outreach, to the people who need libraries.
And what's happened is Tocqueville saw this about Americans,
and he saw this about Americans in the 1830s,
when we were pretty disturbingly polarized at that time.
He said that we were good at meeting needs and problems
on the ground by creating local associations
around those problems, with local groups,
neighborhood groups, the social justice groups if you will,
of the 1830s, solidarity groups,
that we knew how to respond at the local level,
because we trusted each other.
And that's what happened in the later days of the pandemic.
It wasn't the mandates to do something at the federal level
or the mandates not to do something at the state level,
but our sense of obligation and duty kicked in.
Madison also talks about that, James Madison.
His sense in parts of "The Federalist,"
in his notes on government, his essays in the 1790s,
talks about mutual obligation, about reciprocity,
about the character of an informed citizenry,
but even today, we might not be embarrassed
to call a virtuous and enlightened citizenry,
that it is a necessity to maintain our republic,
to be healthy in every sense of the word.
In that sense, folks like the Amistad Library
must be mentioned.
Its civil rights collection is there
for the most important of American communities,
the community of enlightened citizens,
those who realize in dark times that freedom,
in Danielle Allen words, must be taken, earned,
in the sense of the freedom writers,
of John Lewis standing on the Pettus Bridge
or Rosa Parks sitting on the Montgomery bus.
They took their freedom,
earning it for all the rest of us,
and cashing just one part of the promissory note,
the promissory notes of the constitution
and the declaration.
Simone Weil, who was a French philosopher,
was asked by General de Gaulle to write the program
for the French resistance should it take power
after the end of the Second World War,
and the first sentence of "The Need for Roots,"
the English translation of her program
for the French resistance,
her first sentence is I believe
the most important philosophical sentence
of 20th century, important for our century as well,
maybe more important for us.
Her first sentence was, "Obligations precede rights."
The Oakland Museum and the Burke museum,
Asheville Museum, have done much
in their very different ways to give back
to their communities, very different communities
in different ways, a sense of ownership
in the natural world, our landscape, our art,
the art made in and from the community,
the design of life that makes us at once
the creatures of nature and the makers of our environment,
and as Danielle Allen says, seeing the beauty,
the beauty in our flawed selves, in our flawed history,
that is equally true and equally beautiful for all of us
is our most important attribute as human beings.
Madison and Jefferson and Tocqueville saw
that in a democratic republic, in a democracy,
public opinion must always be the most powerful force.
We know that today, and it's a dark thing,
what our public opinion can become.
To preserve the republic dedicated to freedom and quality,
in our case it must become an informed
and enlightened public opinion.
To do that we must continue to learn from each other
as we learn from the riches of our libraries and museums.
The power of what we do,
what we do in our cultural institutions,
what Professor Allen writes about so eloquently,
is to use all of our power
driven by a keyword for her,
and as I said, she'd wrote an article called
"Why Love the Constitution?,"
Love is that keyword,
and I'd like to end with this story.
A few of you have heard this,
but it's an important one to me
from my Kansas City Public Library life.
There was a man named Alvin Sykes who was a musician
who grew up in public housing
with only an eighth grade education,
and as he liked to say, an education
in the public library after that,
the Kansas City, Kansas and the Kansas City, Missouri
public libraries, friend of his was killed
in what was clearly a biased killing at Liberty Memorial,
Liberty Memorial, our World War I Memorial,
and he was acquitted.
The perpetrator was acquitted by the jury,
an all white jury.
Alvin had heard about the civil rights laws
being used in cases like this.
In fact, they've had only been used once up to that point,
and he went to the Kansas City Public Library
and he asked a reference librarian about that,
and they sat down with the U.S. Civil Code
and found the right place, and he spent a lot of time
talking to local prosecutors, federal prosecutors,
and he finally got an assistant attorney general
in Washington named Anthony Scola,
who told him that he was right, and they prosecuted the guy
and put him away.
He's still in jail. That was in the eighties.
Alvin then became instrumental in solving
or at least bringing to court the cold cases
in the civil rights universe, including a close relationship
with Emmett Till's family, with his cousin Simeon Wright,
who spoke for us in the Kansas City Public Library,
and he became the key when the Till Bill, as it was known,
which established the cold case section
and civil rights division of justice department,
was in Congress,
he became the key person in passing that bill,
and the key moment was when he sat in the office
of the most conservative United States senator,
Senator Coburn, Tom Coburn, who by the way
was a friend of the IMLS, Tom Coburn's office,
and Tom Coburn wouldn't approve the bill,
not because of anything to do with race or civil rights,
but because it wasn't funded,
and that was a moment when some people in Congress
were taking that seriously,
that's a little joke,
and Alvin just sat in Tom Coburn's office,
until finally Senator Coburn said well I've got three weeks,
he did this, and finally Senator Coburn came out
and said, come on in, let's talk,
and Alvin convinced Tom Coburn to waive his rule
and pass the legislation.
Probably the most interesting moment in my career
was when I had a conversation with Alvin Sykes
and Tom Coburn before 300 people in the library,
and the importance of that was, here's Alvin Sykes,
who was a Buddhist social justice lawyer, a jazz musician,
he was converted to Buddhism by Herbie Hancock,
sitting down with Tom Coburn,
the most conservative man in the United States Senate
at the time, who was a deeply believing Christian, a doctor,
and the conversation they had, there was one key word
in that conversation that recurred, and it was love,
and Tom Coburn said about Alvin that he knew,
because Alvin presented love,
because he came to literally, he said, love Alvin,
Alvin said the same thing about him,
that he understood that everything Alvin did,
every act in Alvin's life, was pure.
In our deeply skeptical world,
there is room and need for what the 12 of you,
our medalists, have, there is need,
sorry, there's room for, and more importantly need for,
what you do more than ever.
I'm gonna call you the 12 disciples (audience laughs),
because you do it for the best reasons,
for the pure reasons, with faith and hope and love.
Thank you.
(upbeat music)
- When you have a piece of history
that bears the same name as yours,
a lot can be expected of you.
Let me tell you, the Amistad delivers.
Part museum and part archive,
the center brings together a rich collection of art,
culture, and our shared history,
to tell stories of Louisiana
and the African American experience through the centuries,
each of them unique, beautiful, and remarkable.
A key goal of the center's leadership
is bringing these stories to the public,
even to those who can't physically get to New Orleans.
Their traveling exhibitions are designed
to open eyes and open minds.
Likewise, they have dedicated themselves
to digitizing their artifacts, so that technology
is the only key you need to explore Amistad.
What I love about the center is that through their doors,
you literally walk into history.
Amistad is really a treasure for me
because many of my stories are set
in Louisiana or the South,
and for the research that I need, I rely on the Amistad.
It's usually my first place of contact.
Many times, it's the personal papers that I find
at the Amistad or some of their historical research,
the archives that I find,
help me because those materials
are not in other archives or locations.
Many times they're not in print, they're not published,
so I can come here for interviews and for personal papers,
like civil rights leaders,
that really help me with the information that I need.
Even if people cannot come to the location physically,
a lot of information is online,
and I'm thinking specifically about educators,
because many times now traveling or going on field trips
is cost prohibitive, but there's so many programs
and advantages that are available to teachers
and to classrooms digitally,
and there's a wonderful program that the Amistad has,
I think it's called Amistad on the go,
that is so clever, so timely,
and it's a great resource for teachers,
so I just invite educators to check it out.
- Hello, my name is Kim Boyle,
and I'm the chairperson and president
of the board of directors
of the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans.
On behalf of our phenomenal city of New Orleans
and the state of Louisiana,
Amistad is honored to accept a 2022
National Medal for Museum and Library Service.
Tracing its history to an 1841
United States Supreme Court case
involving the trans-Atlantic slave trade,
Amistad is more than an archive and library about struggle.
Amistad is a place where the stories and triumphs of leaders
and everyday people from all walks of life
continue to live in the public's mind.
Through Amistad's efforts to provide access
to our collections, those from many years ago
to those documenting today's world,
as well as the educational programming, exhibitions,
and partnerships that are born from those collections,
Amistad is a community resource for scholars,
educators, students, family historians, artists, and others.
Our community continues to inspire us to open our archives
to all who wish to learn about the fundamental underpinnings
that make up our country's complex,
rich, and beautiful ethnic tapestry.
Now more than ever, Amistad's work is critically important.
No matter the audience, Amistad's collections and programs
have the power to elucidate, explain, and inform,
but perhaps more importantly,
Amistad also has the power to nurture the minds
and wellbeing of individuals from every generation,
to drive community engagement,
and to catalyze lasting social change.
Thank you.
- I'm Laura Mitchell, and I'm thrilled to introduce you
to the amazing work of the Asheville Art Museum.
Their dedication to interpreting
Southern Appalachian artwork, uniting all media
to fully illustrate its rich history is unmatched.
As the new museum building welcomes you into the world
of American art through its inviting glass facade,
it's hard not to feel an instant connection to the place
and person-centered collections and installations,
no matter what part of the world
you're visiting Asheville from.
Even in the face of the pandemic,
shortly after their grand reopening,
they were determined to find creative ways
to keep visitors digitally engaged and learning.
Let's take a closer look at some of the ways
they've been building partnerships and making an impact
in our community and region as a whole.
One of the most exciting connections is the opportunities
that the Asheville art Museum gives
to our students and our teachers,
and as well as our families.
Museum educators here at the Asheville Art Museum
work closely with me to build some professional development
that is really, truly meaningful
and relevant to our teachers.
Across the whole curriculum,
they can make those arts integration connections.
One of the other things the art museum does
is they host the Regional Scholastic Art Awards,
and this is such a gift to our community and to our students
here in Western North Carolina,
because they do a phenomenal job of exhibiting the work
in a very professional manner,
and then they bring in the students and parents
and have a beautiful award ceremony,
and the students can actually see themselves as artists.
They provide art camps for our students in the summer,
and they also employ some of our own educators
here in Macon County Schools.
I would say also, just working with the staff here
and just how personable they are
and how connected they are to our community,
that's just one of the biggest strengths,
is just that they want to serve others
and they want to serve the community by sharing visual art.
- Western North Carolina has artistic traditions
that go back to the Native Americans
who first settled in the region,
and include diverse contributions of those
who later made Southern Appalachia home.
There are contemporary creatives working here
and excelling in every art form.
There are also robust venues to engage with the arts,
but there has never been an anchor,
a highly visible arts institution
proclaiming the centrality of the arts
to our community's wellbeing.
We set out to create just such a place, accessible to all.
The project took more than a decade to come to fruition
and involved the efforts of hundreds.
The museum is a place of learning,
inspiration, and sharing.
Uniquely it celebrates the region's
important aesthetic contributions
and that of America, in dialogue.
Our programs serve populations from preschool to seniors.
We love it when an artist tells us of a pivotal moment
when their own practice was enhanced.
When we overhear memories evoked and stories shared
between elder and younger, when a child has an aha-moment
with a work of art,
or perhaps their first time in an elevator,
their horizons are expanded, and so are ours.
Each day our encounters with visitors tell us
how important the works of museums is.
This honor is for the whole community.
Rightly known for our beautiful mountains, beer and food,
the national medal puts the arts front and center.
Our challenge was and is
to remain a responsive organization,
learning from each visitor, meeting needs,
expanding vital programs and partnerships,
and creating an equitable and accessible space
that shares our collections
and honors and supports creativity,
learning, and connection.
The amazing staff, trustees, members,
and supporters across the nation make our work possible.
We want to thank the Institute
of Museum and Library Services for all that they do,
and for this incredible honor,
which shines a light, not only on our museum,
but on our area's amazing creative heritage
and contemporary arts community.
- Hi, I'm Linda Kotthoff, and I have the pleasure
of telling you a little about one of my favorite places,
the St. Louis County Library.
The library's 20 branches are everything you imagine
when you think of a traditional library,
like reading clubs and research materials,
but look more deeply and you'll see an organization
that supports its community members across the lifespan,
from diapers to digital devices,
from a supermarket on wheels to a mobile vision care unit.
To me, the St. Louis County Library embodies
what a community partner can and should be,
responsive to the needs around it,
and at a time when we all need maybe
a little bit more help than usual,
the library is there, helping us connect to each other
and to services that can make our lives better.
Here are some of the reasons we all feel lucky
that this institution belongs to us.
It's beautiful. It's absolutely gorgeous.
It's so much bigger, or they have a lot more room for books.
It's two stories, and they have more rooms to do
like computer programs and things.
I actually have grown up at the library.
My parents used to take me there when I was little.
Then, as I got older and had my own kids,
I seriously brought them up going to the library.
I mean, we went from when they were very tiny,
we would go for story time,
and we got very involved with doing all of the activities
and all of the different things that they offered,
got to know the librarians very well,
fairly close to them, I would say (laughs),
and I got involved with the art club,
which was every Wednesday,
and then I got my dad involved with the art club,
and it was really nice just spending
that couple hours together each week.
And then I've done tons of the garden programs
that they have.
We do have a community garden up here
at the Grant's View Branch
that we have had since the beginning,
and we really enjoy that,
and growing our own stuff,
and I've done a bunch of exercise classes, Zumba and yoga,
all kinds of different things like that,
so I feel very much a part of the library.
- We are incredibly honored
to receive this prestigious award
honoring the work of our employees.
The St Louis County Library's Efforts
to intentionally steer our priorities
to support the community
were more important than ever during the pandemic.
We look for opportunities to bridge gaps in service
for issues like the digital divide, food insecurity,
economic instability, health disparities,
and working with the justice involved.
We make it a priority to remove barriers
and increase access to library services.
Throughout the pandemic, we have provided essential services
to help people stay connected, access resources,
and continue learning.
Together with our community partners,
we have provided meals, diapers, technology,
tutoring, vaccines, and rental assistance at our branches.
Our efforts to address the digital divide
were particularly impactful during COVID.
Last year we provided 1500 GrandPad tablets
with built in data and internet to older adults.
We have heard from many thankful recipients.
One senior wrote to us and said,
"I wanted to say thank you.
You saved my life.
I picked up my GrandPad yesterday and I love it.
I've been on it all night long.
You did a blessed thing for senior citizens,
because this will entertain you
and keep you from being sad and lonely.
It's so easy for people like me,
illiterate when it comes to gadgets, but this is beautiful,
and I just wanted to tell somebody
at the library, thank you."
Libraries move people forward wherever they are in life,
and this is what the employees
at the St. Louis County Library
are doing every single day.
Thank you.
- Imagine a museum founded by teenagers
more than a century ago
in response to the cultural exploitation
that they saw around them.
Their commitment to preserving the artifacts
and personal histories of the people
who call the Puget Sound home
is the foundation upon which the Burke was created
and continues in its DNA today.
I'm Rachael Tamngin, and it is my distinct pleasure
to introduce you to one of our country's
most magnificent, multifaceted,
mind blowing museums here in Seattle, Washington.
We've come a long way since our founding in 1885.
Visitors today will be wowed by the unparalleled study
and preservation of the fish species,
including eggs and larvae.
Their jaws will drop in examining
our 100% complete T-Rex skull,
or they may lose themselves exploring our vast collection
of Northwest Native art, of which we are extremely proud,
but that, as they say, is just the tip of the iceberg.
I would say the best thing about the Burke in my opinion
is just the community that I've built here,
and we were able to be ourselves,
didn't have to perform for the academy or classes,
just working with different departments.
Everybody's really great to work with.
We were asked to commission a traditionally woven
pandanus sail for long voyaging canoe
to be exhibited in the museum space.
The Burke Museum was really instrumental,
and the crew that helped install the sail
was really a key part of making all of this happen,
and so, you know, building that relationality
that's so important to Pacific Islander culture and values,
that we also incorporate in our research,
really made this happen,
and so now people visit the sail and the exhibit space,
and coming from all different seafaring communities,
or communities that have weaving practices,
and they're able to connect with the sail
so it's been very important for us to have this space
and to use our knowledge and values from our cultures
to influence transformation in museum spaces.
- The Burke Museum is honored to be recognized
for its commitment to serving our communities.
As Washington State's museum,
we are a working research museum
and a living cultural organization.
Co-creating knowledge with communities isn't optional.
It is an imperative if we want to truly live
and fulfill our mission.
Above all, our driving vision
is creating transparency and access.
We live in a time where people feel
disconnected from each other,
from our histories and cultures, and from the natural world.
Our commitment to our vision comes to life
in the new "Inside-Out" model building,
which brings visitors into close,
meaningful engagement with the Burke's research labs,
workrooms, and collection areas, which are open to you.
And we also work to bring the Burke to people
who may not be able to visit us in person,
through all of our traveling and virtual programs
and our online searchable collection database,
which we continue to digitize
to make it more accessible to our communities.
Our work depends on connections.
We collaborate with institutions, communities,
and tribal nations to understand our past,
face the challenges of our present,
and create positive community center change in the future.
- I am thrilled and honored to present to you
the Institute of Museum and Library Services
2022 National Medal Award Winner,
the Wilmington Public Library.
This library that we have all come to cherish and respect
is located in a community
that once had its needs and wants forgotten or ignored.
This library was seen as a homeless shelter
just a few years ago, but it took a vision,
a boatload of courage, and relentless determination
to bring about a change,
which we know the transformation was not easy,
but we are standing in a place right now
that is seen as a beacon of light and hope.
This library is a fixture in a community, and beyond.
You can tell by their social media platforms.
Take a look at the quality of shows and events
that they take on every day.
It goes to show you this library is deeply rooted
and investing in the community on a daily basis,
so it's no surprise that they have won
this prestigious award amongst other honorable mentions.
Yes, it's been a hundred years,
yes, the changes have been remarkable,
but do not sleep on this library,
because if you think the transformation
has been phenomenal, just wait,
because they have only just begun.
- I think the most important thing that I've learned
from this library and witnessing how it moves
is that they're invested in investing in the community.
They could easily just be here to,
here, take your books and go, but they're like, no,
we actually want to pour into those that are around us.
We're not gonna look up at just any,
we're not gonna turn our nose up to the community
and just be like, well,
because you're not presenting yourself a certain way,
you're not worthy, I really do appreciate
how grassroots this library is, so yeah.
- And everyone is welcome here, everyone.
- Thank you, Delaware (crowd cheers).
- We are loyal to the library.
I watch, I scroll on their page every morning
just to see what's out there,
because I don't wanna miss out on anything.
So there was a girlfriend of mine
who was having a lot of problems,
and she was the grandmother of her grandkids,
just this past weekend, they were having a diaper giveaway
from size one to six, and she came and she got diapers,
and she said, this is money that I don't have
that they give it to me for free.
My friends, they all, some of them come for workshops
like I do for finances, or I remember the Delaware,
the Delaware Black Chamber of Commerce,
that also had an event here, and yeah,
they're very, very, very invested in this community.
- Greetings, everyone.
My name is Jamar Rahming, and I serve
as the executive director
of the Wilmington Institute Free Library,
and on behalf of the City of Wilmington,
Delaware Division of Libraries, New Castle County,
and our great staff and board of trustees,
I'm humbled to accept this honor.
As the Declaration of Independence
represented the end of the American Revolution,
and emancipation proclamation pontificated the freedom
of people of African descent, the IMLS Medal,
the highest honor in library land,
is a resounding victory for us
as we've waged warfare against the epidemic
of illiteracy in our community.
We have citizens that have never left
the City of Wilmington.
Therefore we have brought the world to them.
Our citizens have walked into their city library
and have met and interacted
with some of the most prolific voices in modern times,
such as Lavar Burton, Dennis Rodman, Angela Davis,
Dr. Cornel West, Ana Navarro, and Pamela Grier.
Black boys in our community were struggling with reading.
With our Barbershop Books initiative,
we set up pop up libraries in barbershops
all throughout the city.
Young black boys now associate reading
with swagger, freshness, coolness,
and the pride of a haircut.
This initiative has transformed our city,
and it will ultimately transform our nation.
Therefore it is incumbent upon us
and the future of all urban libraries
to make freshness, flavor, swagger, and coolness
the bedrock of all of our endeavors.
That is how the revolution is won.
Thank you IMLS, for this token of victory.
- Art, history, and science, all focused on and designed
to celebrate the incredible diversity of California,
from its people to its plants,
that's the makeup of the Oakland Museum of California,
founded in 1969 to be a museum of the people.
I'm Carolyn Johnson, CEO of the Black Cultural Zone
Community Development Corporation,
and I can't tell you how many times I've overheard
museum visitors whisper,
I never knew that, and that's important,
because most of the visitors here are local, not tourists.
You see local school kids learning about where they live,
how their environment was shaped,
and what generations before them fought for.
People who visit here see themselves in the artifacts.
They feel comfortable and welcome,
which is just one of the many things
that makes this museum so special
and deserving of this award.
Oakland Museum of California has been very important to me,
and it was just a special place,
different than East Oakland,
a place that was different and relaxing
and exciting and inspiring,
so I've loved the museum since I was in high school,
and so there's no particular program.
I've come to some of the Black Panther work as well,
some of the Afro futurism work as well,
which is a major exhibit,
so I've had a chance to get in touch with the exhibits,
with the administration, and with the festivals
and the events that you have,
so all of OMCA has been something special for me,
and also the Afrofuturism exhibit has been something
that's opened their eyes to what a museum can be
and what it should be for them in their lives.
I think, again, OMCA and its involvement
in bringing the museum to East Oakland
has been really special,
because it's so far away, but bringing it closer to us
makes East Oakland folks feel like
we're a part of the museum.
It's a beautiful location,
it's got great art and exhibits,
and it's really connected to our community.
It's not just a museum for them.
It's a museum for us, so what I really want folks to know
is that it's here, it's beautiful,
it's meant for us, and it's special,
and I want folks to come to OMCA to see the space,
to see the art, to see the exhibits,
and know that it's not just for them.
It's for us.
- The Oakland Museum of California is so honored
to be a recipient of the National Medal
for Museum and Library Services.
This award recognizes our important role in our community
as Oakland's gathering place or town square,
as a place where people come together
to build greater trust and understanding and connection.
Since our founding in 1969,
we've been known as the museum of the people.
We tell the stories of California,
including the untold and undertold stories,
and by lifting up these voices,
our visitors see themselves and their identities reflected.
They connect with other people,
both people like them and people not like them,
and they feel a sense of belonging.
As we emerge from this time of social distancing,
we believe Oakland and the Bay Area needs and deserves
a place like the Oakland Museum of California.
For us, this award is a tribute to all the people
whose shoulders we stand on, not just today,
but for the last 50 years,
our board members and donors, our staff and volunteers,
our community partners, and for us,
this is a time to rededicate ourselves to being a museum
of, by, and for all the people.
We are so grateful to IMLS for this great honor.
Thank you.
- This poem is called "Palaces,"
and it is dedicated to the 2022 and 2021
National Medalists for Museum and Library Services.
How I love those grand monumental buildings,
those palaces of the people, those museums and libraries.
Even the smallest storefront library
wedged next to a RadioShack
feels like a soaring place of worship to me.
They have a reverential, air conditioned,
hushed, or maybe not so hushed aura to them.
They say, here readers and wanders,
you may flip through the racks of romances,
or my favorite, the 811's according to Dewey,
the books of poetry, and then find
what you didn't even know you most needed.
Maybe the word museum already calls to mind
some marble and columns,
the palaces along Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile,
back in a time when those robber barons decreed
all culture should be locked up
in their gilded, Faberge egg mansions,
which already showed so many cracks,
but after untold striving,
there are museums in all boroughs and all cities now,
and palaces can be made of warehouses
or people's living rooms, and there are museums
with no walls at all.
Just recently, as I was walking home
over a typically drab bridge,
I became a visitor to an all-of-a-sudden art gallery.
The piece was aerosol paint on sheet metal,
but as exquisite as anything
gracing the walls of a cathedral.
A figure drawn with sparse, concise arcs
of black spray paint was sleeping peacefully
under a two dimensional blanket, while a smiling,
minimalistic angel hovered over them protectively,
the angel's wispy body as long as the sleeper's bed,
angelic legs crossed at the waist,
a floating, dreamlike vision of safety and serenity,
the sleeper's face and the angel's face
hovered against the rivets of the sheet metal.
I almost fell to my knees on the cold cement
when I read the words painted below,
"Rest in peace, Brian," and the date.
But the very next day,
the mural was slathered over with white paint,
the city deciding that no museum, no memorial,
was permitted on that bridge,
but despite everything, I still feel truly lucky
to call the city of Baltimore my home,
the site of so many palatial museums and libraries,
including my childhood temple,
The Holy of Holies, the central branch
of the Enoch Pratt Free Library (audience laughs).
Any visit there starts with the department store windows
decorated with authors' photos like glamorous movie stars.
And then you sail in through the towering brass doors.
Of course, my haven was the children's basement,
with its tiled koi pond and bean bag chairs,
where I learned the love of storybooks
while watching the city's legs pass by
in the tall cellar windows.
Recently refurbished, I still love to drift
through that light saturated library,
a grand atrium that asks you to browse and float
through the stacks at your leisure,
not hurrying you along like other massive structures
that just want to expel you from their opulence
as soon as possible.
But I make pilgrimages to the neighborhood branches too,
those warmer, cozier, outposts of warmth and book clubs
and night classes and James Patterson,
always so, so much James Patterson (audience laughs),
but these are the true palaces
that stitch my beloved city together.
In fact, during the 2015 uprising in Baltimore,
the Penn North branch kept its doors open,
and never turned anyone away,
at the insistence of Dr. Carla Hayden.
A similar spirit of openness infuses my favorite museum
in the city, the American Visionary Art Museum,
exclusively exhibiting artists who are self trained,
self-taught, true visionaries.
In their palaces made of toothpicks
and kitschy queer-love stitched in sequins,
the artists at this museum show us how to take our oddness,
our obsessions, our untrained eyes, and make beautiful,
devotional works from our own lives and memories.
Maybe most essentially of all,
museums and libraries give the public their dignity.
I think of the Enoch Pratt Library,
purposefully designed without any imposing stairs
at the entrance, relieving all the stroller pushers
and those for whom the stairs would be a barrier,
how rare it is to share a public space
that actually invites us in.
So I think too of the St. Louis county Public Library
going late-fee free and merging with the city system
to better serve their community,
or the Asheville Art Museum showing us how to celebrate
regional culture while also situating that culture
within all sorts of arts and artifacts,
just as they merged old and new
with their incredible building,
which is a work of art in itself.
Consider too the dignity that the Wilmington Institute
Free Library offers its patrons,
a gilded beauty of a library with carved sculptures
of winged creatures along the roof,
keeping some traditions alive while also offering
all the wonderful services of a modern library system,
and the Amistad Research Center's collections,
which redeem often concealed histories,
telling stories of freedom and dignity through methods
as varied as land deeds and newspapers,
or the art forms of poetry and contemporary zines.
Let's also learn from the Burke Museum
of Natural History and Culture,
an institution which teaches us
how interconnected archeology, paleontology,
folklore, and art can be,
an ecosystem as intricate as the Pacific Northwest,
which this museum serves.
The Oakland Museum of California too
also uses one region as a window into all places,
showing how California is so much more complex
than any one narrative can encompass,
a kind of city institution that is truly connected
to its city, not just a closed off space
that only has the address of a certain location.
This is why we need museums and libraries too,
if only because they are some of the only places
that won't turn a community member away for not paying,
or get someone arrested or try to haggle,
fool, confuse, numb, or distract their visitors.
No, these are people's palaces, made for dignity.
Every medalist today and every finalist,
every institution that promises a moment of calm,
of learning, of illumination, these are our palaces.
From the closed stacks of special collections
to the most visited museums,
these grand, varied, municipal organizations,
from central branches to neighborhood outposts,
with their guardian lions made of stone,
with their water fountains that always taste like pennies,
with their air of discovery and wonder,
from the most massive city museum
to the smallest roadside memorial,
let's keep these palaces alive and free of all barriers.
Thank you for listening (audience cheers and applauds).