 Thanks so much for joining us here at ACMI. My name is Summer Maxwell and today we'll be discussing the Social Justice Book Group, one of a number of reading groups you can join at the Robbins Library. I have the great pleasure of being joined today in studio by the group's leader, Stephen Prochet. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us here today. Thank you for having me. Of course. So Stephen, let's just dive right in. Tell me about the group and its history, how it came to be. Sure. This is actually a group that was a community need from, that was suggested by the Diversity Task Group co-leader, Rebecca Gruber. And once our department became fully staffed, my supervisor like sent around an email chain and knowing that I had like done something similar at my past position at Vermont Technical College co-rand like a similar social justice book group series. I put my name in there and then myself and Rebecca connected and we started with last March with the Arlington Reads Together selection, Braiding Sweetgrass, and from there we started meeting every other month. So it's a relatively new group. Yep. Yes. So this month it's going to mark our one-year anniversary, fittingly with another Arlington Reads Together selection, Being Human by Judith Heumann. How exciting. Tell me a little bit more about that group, about that book. What's it about? Sure. So that book is by Judith Heumann, who's a disability rights activist. She's best known for like doing the sit-in back in the 1970s to get the Disability Rights Act passed and those recommendations done by the U.S. government. It's also a lot of her memoir about how she's struggled due to the discrimination at the time to get a teaching license in New York. And she's been a lifelong activist, even served in the Obama administration as well and it's a shorter book but it's like, it's a very compelling read and really important to read in terms of understanding disability rights and I'm really looking forward to discussing it with the group next month. Excellent. Now who is the group open to? Who can join? Yep. The group is open to anyone who's like interested in discussing social justice issues. Mostly adults join our group. We are open to like teens as well and we do usually like meet in person and also over Zoom so it is accessible to whoever wants to join by either method. Excellent. Now, do other communities offer groups like this? You mentioned that you had worked at one previously in Vermont or is this kind of group more unique to Arlington and could maybe spread around and inspire other towns to pick up a similar initiative? Sure. So, I would say a lot of these initiatives started like after 2020 with the murder of George Floyd and this of course just started in Arlington. Some libraries currently do similar social justice groups. Some have been more successful. Other times they've had to like shut down due to like a lack of staff bandwidth or interest or even push back in some other states but I find so far it's been pretty successful. Here we have a pretty good core group following that attends every meeting and I find I even get a few familiar, few new faces like each time we meet as well so really hopeful for the future as well. That's awesome. We hope it continues to grow and stay sustainable. How many people are you normally getting at the meetings? So usually including myself I would say usually about seven to ten people and it tends to be like a even split between people who attend in person and then people who attend over Zoom. Nice. So a good small group so everyone gets to share their voice but also enough to have a multitude of perspectives. Exactly. Like you don't like not that I don't want to discourage people from attending but usually that's usually like a real good number for a book group so like you get a variety of perspectives and a conversation without getting too out of control and not everyone feeling like their voice is being heard. So a book group is a really interesting way to get more people involved in the social justice conversation. What is the group's goal exactly? I think in general like it's more like to discuss the current issues going on and like how we can go about change for example in last September before the elections we had discussed one person no vote and a lot of that discussion came out of besides like the themes of the book of the history of voting suppression like many people felt like inspired to like volunteer more with like their election groups like get people registered be election attendees given the controversy we had back in 2020 like at the library we even like instituted on our on our express PC's a link for people to register to vote if they logged on and were so interested in and creating like resources related to registering to vote so that's just like one example of what our book discussions lead to. Yeah it seems like you guys are getting some you know on the ground action there some some people might wonder how a book group could actually combat social injustices what would you say to those people in response. Yes so I would say like a lot of times like the book group really more like it's really more about starting the conversation and through that conversation and through the different perspectives people might get new ideas about I hadn't thought about that perspective before maybe you learn how to like confront your own biases like whether it's in like library services or your place of employment and like after reading that book maybe I implement something new or maybe I'm more inclined to like do a protest or speak out for a cause so like I don't have like the illusion of saying it's going to like solve all the world's ills but like even if like each of our discussions inspires like just one person to like do something to like combat it in justice even in a small way I would say it's a success. Thank you for sharing that now social justice is a pretty broad topic what do you how do you actually select the books that you're going to be reading. Sure so I usually like have regular discussions if the co-sponsor and co-leader Rebecca Gruber and we really talk about like what current events are going on and what themes make sense so we've done like for example on Juneteenth because Juneteenth was like a recent holiday that became a federal holiday so like to get a better understanding of that sometimes we even let like more a local history angle with like all souls like the history of South Boston and that discussion kind of led to why the red line which goes into South Boston didn't get extended to Orlington like it was supposed to historically. Of course indigenous rights was a theme we our last discussion was more around Martin Luther King Day and talked about the erasure of black women in history with the three mothers which looked at the mothers of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, James Baldwin so like a discussion of how we can amplify black women's voices and some future selections we're gonna talk about his name is George Floyd in a couple more months marking like the third anniversary of his murder and like reopening that discussion of police reform and police brutality after what happened in Memphis with Tyree Nichols that was a discussion we had recently and decided it was good to choose that for May. Certainly all important discussions we should be having. Yes. Out of all those wide titles and and the more I'm sure you haven't listed you have a favorite that you've covered so far? Yes so a favorite so I I would definitely say like one person no vote was probably like the most like enlightening discussion for like people who weren't aware of like voting suppression it led to our most like productive discussions I think we've had out of all the book clubs and I would say definitely the book I we're gonna discuss next month being human was like a really good book was a really great choice for Arlington reads together and I'm really looking forward to discussing it I think everyone in Arlington should read that book especially if they're interested in disability rights. Well we're hoping this program will spread the word about it a little bit. Yeah. So now reading is a great start but does the group do anything particular to encourage community members to get more involved with these causes that might particularly resonate with them? Sure so I know I mentioned the voting rights discussion usually after every discussion I send like an email listing more resources about how you can read more about this topic or videos and sometimes even some organizations that are related to the topic we read at least on our end in the library we even discuss DEI issues as well as to how we can like improve speaking on the topic of being human like how we can improve the accessibility of the library whether it's like putting in like more adjustable desks for the computers or other accessibility items. Excellent now what are you reading right now outside of your social justice book club do you have any other recommendations to give to our viewers? Yeah so as the local history library and like I kind of have to promote any like anything related to the history of Arlington certainly Richard Duffy's books are very enlightening in terms of that I usually read a lot of the list of award-winning books like Pulitzer and National Book Award for Fictions and really more for fun like I've been reading Agatha Christie's Kilporot novels at my classics yes I am a pretty big mystery fan so it did make sense to get into that. Excellent so just to reiterate for our viewers when is your next meeting and how can people join your social justice book group and get further involved? Sure so we are meeting next on Tuesday March 28th at 7 p.m. it's going to be held it's a hybrid meeting so both at the conference room at the Robbins library on the fourth floor or we can meet you can meet over zoom you can like get that information through the Robbins library website with the meeting ID or you can send an email to me at sprochetatminlib.net. Excellent thank you well this has been so informative I've learned a lot and I hope that everyone watching at home has as well Stephen before we wrap up is there anything else that you'd like to add? Uh that's it I just hope more people read Being Human and hopefully we get pretty good attendance at our next book club. Excellent I hope so too. Thank you. Thank you thank you again so much for taking the time to be with us here today Stephen again this has been a conversation about the social justice book group that anyone can find at the Robbins library. I'm Summer Maxwell thank you so much for joining us today and we hope to see you again soon