The Children's Reading Room
We do not feel that we were accomplishing our goals. The public wasn't interested. Therefore, We are now taking a page out of history. A page perhaps that a group of abolitionists might of written. We decided to distinguish ourselves from museums, historical societies, tour group, and other association. Let me take you on a short journey. Please get comfortable, Please close your eyes. You are a young boy, or girl, the age of 10; you are walking down the street. It is a sunny fall day. Your mother and father worked the early shift and they left your second floor apartment, thinking that you were on you way to school. They worked very hard they are saving to buy a home in the countryside. Your father works a second job at night. They believe that you are doing well in school because you intercept mail and all phone calls from teachers and the school. Today you have decided to take off from school and do a little freelancing with a spray paint can. While you are walking you pass by a building that use to be a boarded up building. But now it makes you stop to wonder why there are different flags flying on the front of the building. You peek through the windows but can't see much. You decide like only a Just in side the doors you see a kneeling figure in some kind of metal with a description. Looks interesting, you wish you understood the words written below it. Oh well, the place looks and smells pretty rich, you wonder why it's in your neighborhood. (You don't understand that the smell lies in the books on the polished walnut shelves, or in the high back leather chairs that are situated in different location throughout the floor. The smell from the paints used on the second floor in the art department or the smell of the clay in the other department on the second floor.) You heard some kid talking on the sound system. He singing, not rap, but the words you understand. You kinda of like the music too. It sound likes the music you grandfather plays. You wait to see if someone asks you to leave, you didn't dress well this morning. You see people reading in the chairs, you see some people dress strangely. You walk down a corridor, on a shelve (at your sight level) are books, they are about young boys and girls your age. You pick one out because someone is coming down the corridor. You want then to think that you belong there. It has pretty good pictures; you wish you could read what the words say. All of a sudden you hear a boy your age talking to you. You don't see him; you are all alone in the corridor. You go to put the book back and the voice speaks again. Hey! Dude! Don't just put me back on this shelf find out what happen to me! You take the book back off the shelf and open it up. No one is talking. You close the book and go to put it back. The voice again. Hey Dude! Don't you get it I want you to find out what happen to me! You now take this book to a desk in the middle of the room where a man sits in funny clothes. You ask him about the book, what happen to the boy. The man in a quiet voice asks you if you can read all the words in the book. You reply not all of them. He tells you come back at 3:00 with a note from a teacher. You just stand there a minute and the man say; " Oh by the way you can't put the book down Frederick Douglas who is the author of the book doesn't want you too. Here is a note telling why you are late for school. See you at 3:00 My friend." This is the reason for the International Underground Railroad Library. There are so many Libraries; there are so many books. There are fewer and fewer young people reading those books. Although the books in the library are going to be in the same order as all other libraries in other section for research value the front of the Library will be design for children. The Dewey system is a very well thought of system. The system works very well for the people who have conquer the job of learning to read. But for young people who do not know the value of books, we want then to love learning to read about the heroes that were their age. We then would like them to honor those heroes by participating in a re-enactments, the making a murals, making a sculptures, writing a poems, making songs and putting it to music, or choreographing a dance to honor the heroes of his or hers choice. |
From the beginning of our existence we have embark on the research of the history behind the struggle of freedom. After which we tried to convey it to the general public. We did this
through an exhibit, re-enactments (performed by young people), murals etc.