We are very pleased to see Brooklynites Carmela Zuza and Clarence Irving featured in this great video as part of New-York Historical Society’s new exhibition WWII & NYC:
You can see more from this exhibition on The New York Home Fronthere.
And you can hear full interviews with Clarence Irving and Carmela Zuza and over forty other people who worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard at BHS in the Othmer Library: Brooklyn Navy Yard Oral History, 2006 – 2011.
One of Brooklyn Public Library’s Twin Bookmobiles, ca. 1960, v1973.4.445; Postcard Collection, Brooklyn Historical Society.
If one were to ask you “what makes Brooklyn unique?” you may think of its diverse communities or its unique role in American history. But what about something as simple as bookmobiles? Since 1951 Brooklyn Public Library’s bookmobiles have been cruising the streets and making scheduled stops in neighborhoods that are a half-mile or more away from the nearest library. Embracing an attitude of “if the people can’t get to the books, we’ll bring the books to the people,” the bookmobiles were incredibly successful. In 1952 alone the bookmobiles lent out 252,323 books with an average book circulation of 238 books per hour (four books per minute). The original trucks were 27 feet long, eight feet wide, weighed 21,500 pounds, and housed 2,500 books at a time.
Today the bookmobiles are still revving their engines and circulating books across Brooklyn year-round to communities whose libraries are under renovation during the week and to community events on Saturdays. They have traded in their original white and blue paint job for a more modern green. They are also larger and carry more books: bookmobiles are now 29 feet long, nine and a half feet tall, and able to house 6,000 books. The Brooklyn Public Library has also diversified the bookmobile fleet. There are now orange Kidsmobiles which stop at schools during the school year and parks in the summer. There are also red bookmobiles that cater to the Spanish-speaking communities called Bibliobús. This unique part of Brooklyn will continue to be a time honored tradition for Brooklynites of all ages. So, get your reading list together and chase that truck! For bookmobile schedules and information please visit the Brooklyn Public Library’s Bookmobile site.
Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. To search our entire collection of images visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Fri, 1:00-5:00 p.m.
Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations (CBBG) is BHS’s oral history project and public programming series examining the history and experiences of mixed-heritage people and families, cultural hybridity, race, ethnicity, and identity.
We are very excited to give you a sneak peek at the project’s website-in-progress: cbbg.brooklynhistory.org
Did you know that “if marriages in Brooklyn were completely random with respect to race, we might expect about 70% of all Brooklyn marriages to be interracial, instead of the 6% that actually are interracial today”?
There’s a lot of content that is still to come, more digital exhibits, more discussions, and eventually more tools for teachers.
We would love to hear your feedback as the site develops. Email comments to oralhistory(at)brooklynhistory.org
Elsie Richardson (1922-2012) was a Brooklyn leader, community organizer, and activist who lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She was co-founder of the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council and was essential in the creation of the first nonprofit community development corporation in the country, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration, which became a national model. You can learn more about the history and present of Restoration from this video.
Brooklyn Historical Society interviewed Elsie Richardson for the oral history archives in 2008 in collaboration with Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration, which was celebrating its 40th anniversary that year. Elsie Richardson was 86 years old when the resulting exhibition, Reflections on Community Development, opened at BHS and the Skylight Gallery at Restoration, and it was an honor to have her at the opening. Audio montages from that exhibition are available here and also on iTunes (search the iTunes Store for “Brooklyn Historical” and you can subscribe for free to the BHS podcast).
Here’s Elsie Richardson describing the founding of the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council and describing her leadership strategy to always end meetings talking about solutions:
In 1966, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) took a walking tour of Bedford-Stuyvesant as part of his efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of President Johnson’s War on Poverty. Here is Elsie Richardson remembering how she famously told Senator Kennedy that the issues had been “studied to death and what we need is bricks and mortar”:
Two weeks after Senator Kennedy’s meetings in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the work to establish Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration began to take root:
The next two audio clips are from an archival recording from 1967 of a meeting in Bedford Stuyvesant announcing the plans for Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration. Thank you to Ron Shiffman for donating this recording to the BHS’s collections.
In this clip, we hear Elsie Richardson and the audience’s reaction to the New York World Journal Tribune’s reporting on the community organizing happening in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which the newspaper describes as “Brooklyn’s teeming ghetto.” This audience of engaged and organized community members takes particular issue with the newspaper’s description of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s “downtrodden people.”
Here is the beginning of Senator Kennedy’s speech that same day – including a little joke about “downtrodden people.”
Finally, here is Elsie Richardson remembering how The New York Times reported on her community organizing work in 1968, describing her and other leaders as “middle-aged matriarchs.”
Elsie Richardson was an inspiring leader whose work lives on in Brooklyn and beyond.
Today’s guest post is by Ken Tanabe, founder of Loving Day, a global movement for a new holiday to celebrate the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia. Loving Day’s mission is to fight racial prejudice through education and to build multicultural community. Ken will lead a conversation about what it means to be hapa with artist Kip Fulbeck on Thursday, December 8, 6:30p.m. at the Museum of Chinese in America. This event is part of the Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations series, exploringmixed-heritage families, race, ethnicity, culture, and identity, infused with historical perspective.
The word “hapa” comes from Hawaii, a historical hot spot for interracial marriage, and the birthplace of the first multiethnic US President. It most commonly refers to people whose multiethnic heritage includes Asian ancestry. The hapa identity is an especially vibrant part of a growing movement towards multiethnic identity and community.
Being hapa wasn’t always a good thing. Interracial marriage was illegal in many states for most of US history, including marriage between whites and Asians. This made hapa children illegitimate in many places. Punishments for the parents of hapas could be anything from denial of a legal marriage to jail time and fines. These laws (and the social attitudes that formed them) made it clear that hapas should not expect a warm welcome into the world. Interracial marriage bans were not lifted until 1967 through a landmark Supreme Court decision aptly named Loving v. Virginia (now celebrated as Loving Day).
Celebrating Loving Day in New York, photo by Michael Kirby
In 2011, hapas are everywhere from census forms to celebrity A-lists. The hapa identity is growing fast in academia, the community, and the arts. UC Berkeley hosted the first Hapa Japan Conference this year with a focus on Japanese hapa identity. At Harvard, the third annual SWAYA (So… What Are You Anyway?) conference on mixed-race issues was hosted by Harvard Hapa, one of many active hapa student groups nationwide. A great documentary film entitled One Big Hapa Family was shown on PBS and has been traveling the festival circuit, including the first annual Hapa-Palooza festival in Vancouver.
Part Asian, 100% Hapa by Kip Fulbeck
Kip Fulbeck is arguably the most visible artist in the hapa community. He’s especially well known for The Hapa Project, which includes the book Part Asian, 100% Hapa, a traveling photo exhibition, presentations, and online communities. Fulbeck’s work has inspired many other artists to explore the hapa identity through photography and other media. This visibility has an important effect: for many, Fulbeck’s work is their introduction to the hapa identity and the first step on a path to exploring multiethnic identity.
The Hapa Project Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 6:30pm
RSVP Required: programs@mocanyc.org
Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA)
215 Centre Street, Manhattan Directions to MOCA
