Community rallies to save libraries from Miles’ plan

The chants shouted by a crowd of hundreds gathered in front of HISD’s Hattie Mae White Education Building on Aug. 5 to protest superintendent Mike Miles’ plan to libraries in 28 predominantly Black schools into “detention centers,” encapsulated what rally speakers later said: “Up, up with education. Down, down with segregation.” “Tell the TEA we don’t need’em, need’em. We want libraries, we want books, we want freedom, freedom.”

The rally, called for by NAACP Houston president Dr. James Dixon, served as a call for further actions against Miles’ library closing plan. These actions include an “Agenda Review” on Tuesday, Aug. 8 at 6p.m. led by members of HISD’s elected board—members displaced by the TEA-appointed board via Zoom and a Thursday, Aug. 8 “Read-In” at the Hattie Mae White Building beginning at 4p.m. followed by attendance at the HISD board meeting at 5:30p.m.

Before the calls to action, current and former HISD teachers and librarians joined current parents and students who voiced their disbelief and displeasure at the idea of transforming libraries into places of punishment, and “reassigning” (firing) librarians.

“The library is like a comfort place for me,” said Taylor Hill, a Wheatley High School honor student. “I read every day; constantly. I feel like [Miles’ plan] is gonna hurt my education if I don’t have a library available to me. I live in Fifth Ward. There’s not a lot there. But what there is there should not be turned into a detention center.”

Rally speaker Jessica Campos said Pugh Elementary lost the vast majority of its teachers along with its librarian and library; actions that motivated her daughter, Sofie Emory Grace Rojas, a Pugh Elementary student, to address rally attendees too.

“I feel like half of my heart is kinda broken and it’s lost or it’s hurting really bad,” said Rojas. “You took my second family away from me; my best friends, my teachers. And you also took the library. You thinking that we are bad kids; we are not. We are wonderful, kind and smart.”

Speakers also made calls to take the fight to Austin and to the ballot box.

“This would’ve been a very different story had we all voted, had we all made a commitment to change those offices in Austin,” said Houston Federation of Teacher president Jackie Anderson.

“Books open the world. The easiest and most effective way to enslave a man is to keep him unlearned. We do not remove children from their classrooms and put them in zoom rooms and think they are to perform well on the tests that you sent to us… It’s time for us to put our foot down and let everyone in Austin know if you don’t do something, we are coming for you.”

“Do you know that 60% of the low-income households in HISD don’t have a children’s book in their home?” asked County Commissioner Rodney Ellis. “The idea of turning a library into a detention room is nuts. And here’s what I’d say, not only to the superintendent, [but] to the board: ‘Would any of you put your children in a school that does not have a library? Hell no.’ There are consequences to elections. But we gotta wait for that. We gotta put pressure on people who are in power now.”

U.S. Rep. Al Green linked Miles’ library plan to larger, more detrimental moves.

“It’s also about the taking down of the public school system in the state of Texas. This is about a governor who has taken over a school system. The superintendent is but a surrogate,” Green said, while linking the move to the past.

“This goes all the way back to 1956, immediately after the Brown decision was passed. Milton Friedman, a noted ultra-conservative, developed the idea and published it that we would ‘voucherize’ the school system so that we could continue segregation. And since that moment, there has been an effort to ‘voucherize’ school systems and allow people to take money out of the public school system, and put that money into the pockets of people who desire to have their children in private schools. And if we do this, we will return to segregation… We cannot allow resegregation to start on our watch.”