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Monday, August 13, 2012

Oakland Liberates Shuttered Library | OccupyWallSt.org

Oakland Liberates Shuttered Library | OccupyWallSt.org:


Oakland Liberates Shuttered Library

A small group of activists in front of the library with banner reading Biblioteca Popular Victor Martinez People's Library
Where: 1449 Miller Ave, Oakland CA
More info: Biblioteca Popular Victor Martinez on Facebook | @bibliotecapopul, #peopleslibrary
The building unveiled today as the Victor Martinez Community Library was part of a Carnegie Foundation endowment of four libraries given to the city of Oakland between 1916 and 1918. Oakland’s librarian at the time, Charles S. Greene, believed that the city’s people would benefit most from libraries placed within their communities.
Despite this vision, the building was one of seven branch casualties of budget cuts in the late seventies, severing vital library life-lines in poor and working communities. Since then, the “Latin American Branch” library building