By Frederick Melo | June 11, 2014

Read the article on the Pioneer Press’s website.

Labor historian Peter Rachleff is converting the former Carnegie library on Greenbrier Street — a neoclassical landmark — into a people’s history of St. Paul’s East Side. It’s serious work, but he’s not above using sweets from three local cultures to entice visitors inside.

From 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, the building will open for a “Freedom!” reception to celebrate Juneteenth, which recognizes the unofficial end of slavery in June 1865. Some slave owners held out on informing their slaves about abolition until two months after the end of the Civil War, said Rachleff, and the event marks their emancipation.

“We will have poetry and music and discussion about history, and a discussion about the future of the building,” said Rachleff, who has lived on the East Side, about a mile from the library, for 15 years.

Rachleff’s wife, Beth Cleary, a theater professor at Macalester College and co-organizer of the project, has lined up candy from the Karen market on Arcade Street, almond cookies from Sui Yep Cafe on Payne Avenue and Mexican candy and juice from the By More Supermercado on Payne.

Rachleff and Cleary are fundraising for building improvements and leasing the library from the city of St. Paul for 15 years, with an option to buy it at any time.

“We will be a center for the research and recognition of the history of immigrants and working people on the East Side,” said Rachleff, who recently retired after teaching at Macalester for 32 years.

Formerly known as the Arlington Hills library, the Beaux Arts-style city library was built in 1916 with money donated by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It closed in March, and library operations were moved to the new Arlington Hills Community Center, which opened in May.

On Saturday night, the couple will head over to Minneapolis for Northern Spark, an annual all-night arts festival. The East Side Freedom Library is one of a number of groups cycling in and out of a mobile trailer to host discussions about community spaces entitled the “Past, Present and Future of the Commons: International Perspectives.”

Rachleff will lead talks from 9 to 10 p.m. The trailer will be parked at West River Parkway at Portland Avenue in Minneapolis.

More information is online at Eastsidefreedomlibrary.org.

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172.

Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.

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