East Side Freedom Library

Ben Barson and Brassroots Democracy: A Panel Discussion on Music and the Movements
2025-03-14 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Ben Barson and Brassroots Democracy: A Panel Discussion on Music and the Movements
Friday, March 14, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
FREE!
Join Ben Barson in conversation with Davu Seru, Yolanda Williams, Shekela Wanyama and Brass Solidarity for a conversation about music, culture and movements. Much like how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction, the tuneful art has been woven into grassroots social movements throughout the twentieth century, with implications for American culture writ large.
Benjamin Barson is a composer, historian, and musicologist. He is an assistant professor of music at Bucknell University. His research thinks through jazz as an Afro-Atlantic art form deeply tied to the counter-plantation legacies of the Haitian Revolution and their echoes in Radical Reconstruction. He received his PhD in Music from the University of Pittsburgh and recently completed a Fulbright Garcia-Robles postdoctoral fellowship at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Mexicali, Mexico.
His work Mirror Butterfly: The Migrant Liberation Movement Suite (2018) was hailed as “Fully orchestrated and magnificently realized” (The Vermont Standard) as well as “a call to action” (I Care if You Listen). His teaching encourages students to consider musical aesthetics and their associated production practices through a holistic, interdisciplinary approach rooted in methodologies developed by scholars in Africana studies, musicology, cultural studies, and Atlantic History from below.
Davu Seru is the Curator of the Givens Collection of African American Literature at University of Minnesota. He is an improvising musician, composer and scholar known primarily for his work on drums. For the past 20+ years he has worked with musicians such as Milo Fine, George Cartwright, Nirmala Rajasekar, Douglas R. Ewart, Michelle Kinney, Dean Magraw, Paul Metzger, Evan Parker, Didier Petit, Babatunde Lea, Nathan Hanson, Mankwe Ndosi, Rafael Toral, David Boykin, Donald Washington, Guillame Seguron, Tony Hymas, David Boykin, Chris Bates, Catherine Delaunay, and Nicole Mitchell Gantt. Davu is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Rev. Yolanda Y. Williams, Ph.D., is a performer, educator, scholar, and pastor. Yolanda performed soprano and mezzo-soprano repertoire with Vocalessence, the Rochester Symphony, La Choeur Symphonique de Fribourg, Lundi Sept Heures, Ensemble de Cuivres Jurassien, the Montreux Symphony, and the Israel Philharmonic. Her worldwide performances have been of music from the Classical, Jazz, Blues, and Gospel genres. Dr. Williams teaches music as a cultural artifact through the African American/African Studies department at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Shekela Wanyama (she/her/hers) builds community through crafting innovative and meaningful choral experiences. She is passionate about building a 21st century practice of art music that is inclusive, engaging, honest, and brave. A freelance conductor-educator based in Minneapolis, Dr. Wanyama serves on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, Hamline University, and the music staff at Unity Church-Unitarian. Dr. Wanyama holds a DMA in conducting from the University of Minnesota, an MM in choral conducting from Temple University, a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Minnesota, and is a proud graduate of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

This event is generously sponsored by the African American and African Studies Department at the University of Minnesota.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY!

History Day Help at East Side Freedom Library
2025-03-15 10:00 - 12:00, 2025-03-22 10:00 - 12:00, 2025-03-29 10:00 - 12:00, 2025-04-05 10:00 - 12:00, 2025-04-12 10:00 - 12:00, 2025-04-19 10:00 - 12:00, 2025-04-26 10:00 - 12:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN HISTORY
The 2025 National History Day theme asks students to think about how rights have been won and exercised and how they connect to responsibilities as members of society. Are students interested in racial justice, labor activism, women’s rights, immigrant history, GLBTQ+ movements, environmental activism, and more? Send them to the East Side Freedom Library to find rich resources (books, art, music, and more) for their research and experienced mentors eager to help them shape their project. We have worked effectively with local students for the past ten years.
EVERY SATURDAY MORNING, 10AM TO NOON
BEGINNING NOVEMBER 16
We encourage students to make an appointment by emailing Peter Rachleff at peter@eastsidefreedomlibrary.org. Students should be prepared to follow our safety protocols, including wearing a mask if asked (as we are unsure what our precautions will be as we get deeper into the fall). After their initial mentoring consultation, they will be welcome to come at other times to use our resources, and our mentors will be available for one-on-one conversations, in person or remotely. If you would like to speak with us, feel free to call us at 651-207-4926. We look forward to working with you and your students.

Histories on the Run: State Memory & Hmong Refugee Ways of Knowing
2025-03-28 18:30 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Histories on the Run: State Memory & Hmong Refugee Ways of Knowing
A Conversation with Ma Vang & Kong Pha
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
Friday, March 28, 2025, 7:00 p.m.; doors, social and refreshments at 6:30
What does refugee history look like when government records try to keep state complicity in producing displacement a secret? How might Critical Hmong Studies help us to understand the forces of empire, war, place, and peoplehood more deeply? How are archives embodied and lived?
Join Professors Ma Vang (UC Merced, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies) and Kong Pha (UW-Madison, Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies and Asian American Studies) for a community discussion on Vang’s History on the Run: Secrecy, Fugitivity, and Hmong Refugee Epistemologies (Duke, 2021) and Pha’s forthcoming Hyperheterosexual Subjects: Racialized Cultures of Gender and Sexuality in Hmong America (University of Washington Press, 2025).
Dr. Ma Vang is an Associate Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Merced. Her most recent book is History on the Run: Secrecy, Fugitivity, and Hmong Refugee Epistemologies (Duke University Press, 2021). She is co-author of Departures: An Introduction to Critical Refugee Studies (UC Press, 2022) and co-editor of Claiming Place: On the Agency of Hmong Women (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). She teaches courses in critical race theory, critical refugee and immigration studies, and interdisciplinary humanities. She is actively involved in Merced community organizations in an advisory role on youth and education projects.

Dr. Kong Pheng Pha is Assistant Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He teaches courses on Hmong American experiences in the diaspora, Asian American feminism, and social justice organizing in the U.S. His book Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality (University of Washington Press, 2025) examines Hmong racial subject formation and cultural transformations against the backdrop of U.S. sexual and queer liberalism. Additionally, his creative public humanities and community-based participatory research projects have been funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.

This event is free and open to the public. Complimentary snacks & refreshments will be available beforehand at 6:30.
Sponsored by Sociology and American Studies, Macalester College

Save Our Post Office!
2025-03-29 13:00 - 15:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
SAVE OUR POST OFFICE! 💪 💌

Join us for a panel with postal workers’ union leaders and their insights into how we can work together to save our post office.

⏲️ WHEN: Saturday, March 29, 1 – 3 PM

WHERE:

📍 In-person: East Side Freedom Library at 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55016
(Register here to let us know you’re coming and/or get the link to the recording of this event!)

👋 WHO: Joe Rian, President of National Association of Letters Carriers Local 9 (Minneapolis); Jeff Larson, President of National Postal Mailhandlers Local 323 (Twin Cities); American Postal Workers’ Union’s Greg Tegland (President of the Minneapolis local); Dave Cook (President of the St. Paul local); Kim Maurer (President of the Postal Data Center local); Richard Haefner, President, Minnesota State APWU; and Tom Sharpe, President, Minnesota Rural Letter Carriers Association..

💡 WHY: The administration’s desire to seize control of the United States Postal Service and privatize it is a threat not only to postal workers, but to all of us.

From big cities to rural communities, we depend on the security and reliability of the postal service to handle our financial and personal communications. Our postal worker unions are standing in the gap to preserve the post office–not only protecting their jobs but also protecting the service we all value.

The unions are setting an example for public employees, from the federal government to the state, country, and city levels, as they face the threats of the oligarchs and their political minions! Stand with us!
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY! (Registration here.)

Trilingua Cinema Presents: Soundtrack to a Coup-d'Etat
2025-04-10 19:00 - 21:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Soundtrack to a Coup-d’Etat
Thursday, April 10th, 7:00pm
East Side Freedom Library
1105 Greenbrier St, St Paul, MN 55106
“A movie that should be watched by everyone, whether to understand art or the backbone of our political and economic system.“
-Elisa Guimarães, Collider
Join us for a FREE SCREENING of Johan Grimonprez’s masterful documentary Soundtrack to a Coup-d’Etat.
Synopsis
United Nations, 1960: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe, and the U.S. State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup. Director Johan Grimonprez captures the moment when African politics and American jazz collided in this magnificent essay film, a riveting historical rollercoaster that illuminates the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba. Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.
This film is not yet rated. Parents are encouraged to use their own discretion.
This film will be screened in English with English subtitles.
REGISTRATION REQUESTED
Trailer:

MN Book Award Series: Christopher Lehman's "It Took Courage: Eliza Winston's Quest For Freedom"
2025-04-23 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Christopher Lehman’s “It Took Courage: Eliza Winston’s Quest For Freedom”
Wednesday, April 23, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
LET US KNOW YOU’RE COMING
Join the East Side Freedom Library the day after the awards ceremony in welcoming Minnesota Book Award finalist Christopher Lehman as he returns to ESFL for his award-nominated book It Took Courage: Eliza Winston’s Quest for Freedom.
In 1860, Eliza Winston escaped enslavement while traveling in Minnesota, where she secured her freedom through legal appeal. Her story adds powerful testimony to African American experiences and perseverance in antebellum America.
Winston petitioned for her freedom before a judge in Minnesota—and she won. After she left the state for Canada, the abolitionists who had helped her told and retold the story, emphasizing their own actions; their detractors claimed they had used Winston as a pawn. For more than 150 years, historians’ accounts have emphasized the mobs who battled in the streets after the ruling, focusing on the implications of the events for Minnesota politics rather than Winston’s own story. With It Took Courage, Christopher P. Lehman helps set the record straight.
Christopher P. Lehman is a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. He researches, writes, and teaches about the struggle for African American equality, using the tools of genealogy to trace the lives of people who have left very few traces. He has written six other books, including Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State, which won the Minnesota Book Award for Minnesota Nonfiction in 2020.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY!
(REGISTER HERE)
Books for sale from

Z PUPPETS ROSENSCHNOZ PRESENTS: Tales of ᏓᎦᏏ Dagsi Turtle & ᏥᏍᏚ Jisdu Wabbit
2025-04-26 10:30 - 12:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Z PUPPETS ROSENSCHNOZ PRESENTS
Tales of ᏓᎦᏏ Dagsi Turtle & ᏥᏍᏚ Jisdu Wabbit
A new musical adventure to help keep alive the Cherokee language
Saturday, April 26, 10:30 a.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, St. Paul
Free admission!
Dagsi Turtle & his sidekick Jisdu Wabbit race through time and space to bring you a new musical adventure into the Cherokee language. Hop aboard the Turtleship and join Dagsi and Jisdu’s quest to keep alive this endangered Indigenous language. This show features catchy original tunes and out-of-this-world puppet characters, created and performed by Cherokee Nation citizen Chris Griffith and Shari Aronson and directed by Julie Boada (Anishinabe).
Recommended for ages 5+.
Tales is an Awardee of a 2025 Jim Henson Foundation Family Theater Grant, with support also from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.
In 2019, the Cherokee Nation declared a state of emergency for their language. In response, Z Puppets is creating live performances, music videos and web series to engage youth and adults in seeing and hearing Cherokee language, culture and history. This work has earned critical acclaim, media attention (Indian Country Today, Cherokee Phoenix and MN Public Radio) and thousands of viewers for their creative approach to revitalizing an endangered language.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Chris Griffith (Writer/Composer/Puppetry Designer/Performer), is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Co-Creative Director of Z Puppets Rosenschnoz and award-winning puppetry artist/arts educator in Minneapolis. Over 30 years, his work has attracted support from Indigenous Performances Productions, Cherokee Film Office/OK Film & TV Academy, NDN Collective, FilmNorth, Tiwahe Foundation, National Endowment of the Arts, Perpich Center for Arts Education, Ivey Awards and the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Shari Aronson (Writer/Performer). Co-Creative Director of Z Puppets Rosenschnoz, started her career as a Resident Playwright at Bloomington Playwrights’ Project in Indiana, followed by a McKnight Foundation Screenwriting Fellowship and M.A. in Drama Education. Theaters nationwide produce Shari’s stage adaptation of children’s book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. She has also developed interactive environments and experiences for Minnesota’s History Center, Science Museum and Children”s Museum.

Director Julie Boada is an Anishinabe artist, storyteller, puppeteer and arts educator. Julie has worked regionally and nationally with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre, Z Puppets Rosenschnoz, and the MN History Center. A 2014 Ivey Award recipient, Julie has received support from the MN State Arts Board and the Jerome Foundation. Julie has a B.A. in Studio Arts and American Indian Studies from the University of Minnesota.
About Z Puppets Rosenschnoz
Z Puppets’ mission is to bring people of all ages and abilities into the power of playfulness, through performances, workshops and feats of imagination. Our work delights children and their adults with the inventive blend of hand-crafted puppetry, quirky humor and whimsical music. Since 1998, we have created 30+ original shows — from a glow-in-the-dark performance of cell division to a mindfulness musical. Z Puppets has earned honors and support nationally from the Jim Henson Foundation, Network of Ensemble Theaters, Puppeteers of America, Parents’ Choice and Creative Child Magazine and Ordway Center for Performing Arts. Z Puppets performs across the country (including National Puppetry Festivals, Heard Museum of American Indian Art and Eric Carle Museum), as well as in Minnesota (at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts, Walker Art Center and Minnesota State Fair).
Shari and Chris consider it a great honor to lead people into sharing laughter and making meaning of the world. Thus, their company motto: Behold! The Power of Playfulness.
Learn more at zpuppets.org.

MN Book Award Series: Sonja Trom Eayrs: Dodge County Inc.
2025-04-26 14:00 - 16:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
MN Book Award Series: Sonja Trom Eayrs: Dodge County Inc.
Saturday, April 26, 2025, 3:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
Note: There will be a reception at 2:00 featuring the art exhibit You Betcha! Farmer-Labor Solidarity is Possible. Join us!
Let us know you’re coming! REGISTER HERE.
Join the East Side Freedom Library and the Land Stewardship Project in welcoming Minnesota Book Award finalist Sonja Trom Eayrs for her award-nominated book Dodge County Inc.: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America.
In 2014 Sonja Trom Eayrs’s parents filed the first of three lawsuits against Dodge County officials and their neighbors, one of the few avenues available to them to challenge installation of a corporate factory farm near their intergenerational family farm in Dodge County, Minnesota. For years they’d witnessed the now widely known devastation wrought by industrial hog operations—inhumane treatment of animals and people, pollution, the threat of cancer clusters, and more. They’d had enough. They also deeply understood an effect of Big Ag rarely discussed in mainstream media—the hollowing-out of their lifelong farming community and economy in service of the corporate bottom line.
Sonja Trom Eayrs is a farmer’s daughter, rural advocate, and attorney. She is involved in several rural advocacy organizations, including the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, Farm Action, Land Stewardship Project, and Dodge County Concerned Citizens. Trom Eayrs also serves as the business manager for the Trom family farm in Dodge County, Minnesota. For more information about the author, visit sonjatromeayrs.com.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY! Registration is requested.

Book Award Series: Marcie Rendon's "Where They Last Saw Her"
2025-04-28 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Book Award Series: Marcie Rendon’s Where They Last Saw Her
Monday, April 28, 2025, 7 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE (REGISTRATION REQUESTED)
Join us for another in our series of Minnesota Book Award finalists readings when Marcie Rendon comes to ESFL for her nominated book Where They Last Saw Her.
As a follow up to her award-winning Cash Blackbear series comes a compelling novel of a Native American woman who learns of the disappearance of one of her own and decides enough is enough.
All they heard was her scream. Quill has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life. She knows what happens to women who look like her. As Quill puts everything on the line to make a difference, the novel asks searing questions about bystander culture, the reverberations of even one act of crime, and the long-lasting trauma of being considered invisible.
Marcie R. Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, author, playwright, poet, and freelance writer. Also a community arts activist, Rendon supports other native artists / writers / creators to pursue their art, and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership, writing. She is an award-winning author of a fresh new murder mystery series, and also has an extensive body of fiction and nonfiction works.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY
REGISTER HERE
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Book Awards Series: Shannon Gibney and Sun Yung Shin
2025-04-30 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Book Awards Series: Shannon Gibney and Sun Yung Shin
Wednesday, April 30, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, Saint Paul, MN 55106
THIS EVENT IS FREE; REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED
Join the East Side Freedom Library as we welcome Shannon Gibney, co-editor and contributor, and Sun Yung Shin, contributing author for When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology. This Minnesota Book Award Finalist selection is an emotion-filled collection that features 17 authors whose stories tell us important lessons about culture beyond a message to adoptees.
There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres.
These tales from fourteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences.
This groundbreaking collection centers what it’s like growing up as an adoptee. These are stories by adoptees, for adoptees, reclaiming their own narratives.
Shannon Gibney is an award-winning author of books of all kinds — from novels to anthologies to essays to picture books. She writes for adults, children, and everyone in-between. Her books include, The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be (Dutton, 2023), Dream Country (Dutton, 2018), and the children’s book Sam and the INCREDIBLE African and African American Food Fight (University of Minnesota Press, 2023).

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin was born in Seoul, Korea and was raised in the Chicago area. She is the winner of many awards for her poetry collections and is an editor, writer, and cultural worker. She is the editor of What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories on Food and Family (2021) and of A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, author of several poetry collections, the latest decorated work The Wet Hex is the winner of the Midland Authors Society Award for Poetry and finalist for a Minnesota Book Award). Her forthcoming picture book, Revolutions are Made of Love: Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs, co-written with Mélina Mangal, will be published in 2025.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY!
REGISTER HERE
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MN Book Award Series: "Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces" with Michelle Filkins
2025-05-15 19:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
MN Book Award Series: Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces with Michelle Filkins, joined by Sha Cage, Maureen Aiken, Leslie Adrienne Miller, Suzanne Nielsen and Patricia Cumbie.
Thursday, May 15, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED
The East Side Freedom Library is fortunate to have on our board of directors editor, librarian and writer Michelle Filkins. Join us for a conversation on the collection recognized as a Minnesota Book Award finalist, Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces. Michelle will be on hand along with some of the contributors to the collection.
Locker Room Talk, gives us insight into the epic and ordinary moments that happen when women are together. Subverting the traditional idea of “locker room talk,” this collection illuminates the conversations women share with family, friends, and strangers, whether at the sinks of a nightclub ladies’ room, on a bus heading to the Women’s March, or in the kitchen of an elder relative. Cumulatively, they reveal the myriad ways women care for themselves, each other, their communities, and our world.
Michelle Filkins is a founding editor of Spout Press and a contributing author to The Evolution of Human Cooperation and Community Development (Lexington Books, 2021) and Creating a Transformational Community: The Fundamentals of Stewardship Activities (Lexington Books, 2017). She is a Little Free Library steward and one of the Daunte Wright Memorial caretakers. Currently she is a professor and reference and instruction librarian at Metro State University in Saint Paul.
Sha Cage is a renaissance artist who writes, directs and acts in theater and film. She has been called a change-maker and one of the leading artists of her generation. Sha is one of the premier actors, artists and culture makers in the Twin Cities whose work has been recognized globally.
Maureen Aitken’s short-story collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls (SEMO Press), won the Nilsen Prize, the top Foreword Review INDIE Prize (General Fiction, Gold Winner), and ranked in the Kirkus Best Indie Books of 2019. She is a Minnesota Book Award finalist and a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Leslie Adrienne Miller’s collections of poetry include Y, The Resurrection Trade, and Eat Quite Everything You See from Graywolf Press, and Yesterday Had a Man In It, Ungodliness and Staying Up For Love from Carnegie Mellon University Press.
Patricia Cumbie’s short stories and essays have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Her writing has been supported by The Loft Literary Center’s Fiction Mentor Series, a nSASE/Jerome Fellowship, a Loft Career Initiative Grant, and a Minnesota State Arts Board fellowship.
Suzanne Nielsen (she/her) is a lifelong resident of St. Paul, Minnesota. She is an East Sider who teaches writing at Metropolitan State University. Her latest poetry collection, Face Up, was published in March 2022.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY!
REGISTRATION REQUESTED
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MN Book Award Series: Under Turbulent Skies - a reading and reflection by Kao Kalia Yang
2025-05-22 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
MN Book Award Series: Under Turbulent Skies – a reading and reflection by Kao Kalia Yang
Thursday, May 22, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED
On April 22nd of this year, Kao Kalia Yang accomplished something no other person has in the history of the Minnesota Book Awards. She took home three top honors in one year! We are stunned but not surprised. We have long been honored to have her as a friend and frequent presenter at the East Side Freedom Library and again welcome her as we celebrate. This recognition is apt for the rich voice and astute consciousness she has shared over the years, geographies and important dialogs.
Kalia won the prize for:

Children’s Literature: The Rock in My Throat by Kao Kalia Yang; illustrated by Jiemei Lin (Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group)
Middle Grade Literature: The Diamond Explorer by Kao Kalia Yang (Dutton Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House)
Memoir & Creative Nonfiction: Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life by Kao Kalia Yang (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)

In addition, Kalia is part of this year’s Book Awards winner in the Anthology category, a book co-edited by ESLF board member Michelle Filkins, Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces.
Where the Rivers Part
“There are moments of poignant beauty. There are also humiliations. Tswb is small and brown; her English is not good. In America, she is easily overlooked. In this exceptional book, Yang shows what a mistake it is to underestimate her: ‘I wanted to claim the legacy of the woman I come from, the women who had to define for themselves what it meant to live in a world where luck was not on your side.’ She has done so with deep feeling and grace.” —BookPage (starred review)
The Diamond Explorer
Award winning author Kao Kalia Yang stuns with middle-grade debut about a Hmong American boy’s struggle to find a place
for himself in America and in the world of his ancestors.
“Yang has crafted a layered, profoundly moving musing on grief, connection (and lack thereof), and identity…a true gem.” –Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW; “[A] richly wrought tale about a boy coming into his own.” –Publishers Weekly
The Rock in My Throat
Having seen the poor treatment her parents received when making their best efforts at speaking English, she no longer speaks at school. Kalia feels as though a rock has become lodged in her throat, and it grows heavier each day. Although the narrative is somber, it is also infused with moments of beauty, love, and hope.–Lerner Publishing
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer. She is the author of the adult memoirs The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, The Song Poet, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. Yang is also the author of the children’s books A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, The Most Beautiful Thing, and Yang Warriors. Yang is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, and her work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered seven Minnesota Book Awards. The East Side Freedom Library is housed in the building of her childhood public library. Kao Kalia Yang lives in Minnesota with her family, and teaches and speaks across the nation.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!
REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED

MN Book Award Series: Novel & Short Story Winner Mubanga Kalimamukwento
2025-06-05 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
MN Book Award Series: Fiction Winner Mubanga Kalimamukwento
Thursday, June 5, 2025, 7 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED
Join the East Side Freedom Library as we welcome the 2025 winner of the Minnesota Book Award in the Novel & Short Story category, Mubanga Kalimamukwento. Acclaimed by many critics for her the brilliant poetics of her astonishing prose, Mubanga has spun her words into a litany of awards and recognition. She will be at ESFL on June 5 to read from her Minnesota top honors work Obligations to the Wounded and other works.
Mubanga Kalimamukwento was born in Lusaka, Zambia. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in adda, Aster(ix), Contemporary Verse 2, Kweli, Overland, The Ex-Puritan, Menelique, on Netflix, and elsewhere, and her editorial work can be found or is forthcoming in Shenandoah, the Water~Stone Review, Doek! Literary Magazine and Safundi. She founded Ubwali Literary Magazine and co-founded the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop. When she’s not writing or editing, Mubanga serves as a Mentor at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She is a PhD student in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota (Twin-Cities), where she is also an Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC) Scholar. Mubanga lives in Minnesota with her husband and their two children.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY!
REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED

9th Annual Union Job & Resource Fair
2025-06-12 13:00 - 18:00 | The Electrical Industry Building, 1330 Conway Street, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join us for our 9th Annual Union Job and Resource Fair, held at the Electrical Industry Building, 1330 Conway Street, Thursday, June 12 from 1:00 to 6:00 PM on Saint Paul’s East Side.
Our goal is to connect individuals in our community with potential employers and local resources to create pathways towards a union career. We will have onsite interviewing, hiring, assistance with resume writing, apprenticeship program information, community resources – including expungement services.
Our unions, training programs and employers have career opportunities throughout the entire metro area! Whether you are just starting out, looking for your first job or a seasoned worker looking to land into a new career with thriving pay and benefits, we have opportunities for all.

Participating Employers & Organizations:

Anchor Glass Container Corporation
Boilermakers Local #647
City of Saint Paul Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity (HREEO)
City of Saint Paul Public Works
Finishing Trades Institute of the Upper Midwest
IATSE Local 13
IBEW Local Union 23
IBEW Local Union 110
Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis
Labor Education Service, UMN
Laborers Local 563 LiUNA
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development / CareerForce
Minnesota Department of Transportation
Minnesota RETAIN
Minnesota Training Partnership
Monarch Healthcare Management
North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters (NCSRCC)
Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy
Roofers & Waterproofers Union Local 96
Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services
St Paul Pipefitters JATC
St. Paul Plumbers 34
United State Postal Service
Wright Tree Service

Sponsored by:

AFL-CIO Community Services
City of Saint Paul
East Side Freedom Library
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers IBEW Local 110
Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation
St. Paul Building Trades
St. Paul Federal Credit Union
UFCW Local 1189

ART LAB FINAL SHOWCASE: MAPPING OUR HOUSING FAMILY TREES
2025-06-22 13:00 - 14:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
ART LAB FINAL SHOWCASE: MAPPING OUR HOUSING FAMILY TREES
Sunday, June 22, 1 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
Paint. Draw. Type. Map. Sing. Act. Glam. Listen. Share.
Join us for an interactive, community empowered art lab showcase. The East Side Freedom Library Art Lab artists will bring their installations showcasing their work and inviting everyone in the community, your community, to join in artmaking, storytelling, story mapping and more.

Artists Sophie Wang, Sterling Miller, Marcia Rowe and Lis Sundberg will engage you in art, stories and history. Paint, print, draw, type, zine, and write with our story map of Saint Paul and beyond!

Sophie Wang: My primary artistic practice is the creation of comic zines that take a critical power-informed lens to dominant science and technology. I began making these comics when I co-founded an activist collective at the intersection of science and social justice called Free Radicals and wanted to use my ability to draw in service of the work. I came to this work originally out of a deep sense of responsibility to make conversations critiquing the imperialist, objectivist, universalist nature of dominant western science more accessible, and to engage more people in envisioning what more liberatory forms of science, knowledge-making, and epistemology have, do, and could look like.
Sterling Miller: Social Justice is informing my art by pressuring me create work that speaks to the needs of Black folks. I, like many others, know that to identify as Black is grounds for political warfare. I know that highlighting Black revolutionaries in performance art acts as a catalyst to inspire Artists and Audiences alike. When we get to see the Assata Shakur’s story on stage we are enthralled by her iconic nature and her ability to achieve the unthinkable. In works that took place after this I have always tried to center Black/African-American narratives and cultural practices.
Lis Sundberg: I have been interested in the intersections between art and social justice for a long time because art is a powerful and accessible way to engage people in social justice. Art extends topics of social justice to a wider audience and allows representation through a range of mediums. I am interested in participatory art because it creates opportunities for people to have a meaningful experience while contributing their stories to the piece. The art I create is informed by my history of participation in social justice movements.
Marcia Rowe: Social justice informs my art through my lived, academic, and professional experiences. It creates innovation, niche experiences, cultural knowledge, and growth of connection between myself and a diverse audience. My academic background centers intersecting visual arts with sociology practices, visual and qualitative research, design studies, and community engagement experiences.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND VERY OPEN TO EVERYONE!

BOOK RELEASE! Said Shaiye for ARE YOU BORG NOW? with Douglas Kearney
2025-06-30 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
BOOK RELEASE! Said Shaiye for ARE YOU BORG NOW? in conversation with Douglas Kearney
Monday, June 30, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED
Join us at the East Side Freedom Library for a book release reading and conversation with noted author Said Shaiye and award-winning poet Douglas Kearney.
Are You Borg Now? by Said Shaiye (NOEMI Press) is an Afrofuturist memoir returns in a second edition with a new introduction by Douglas Kearney. Said Shaiye’s cross-genre work blends nonfiction and poetry in an experimental interview the author conducts with his younger self, rejecting the conventions of memoir and what
is expected of who writes them, specifically when that writer is an immigrant. Are You Borg Now? ciphers with trauma through a poetics of refusal via hard and beautiful language. Finding vigor in Islam and mirrors in Star Trek: Voyager, Shaiye shifts achingly between memory and improvisation.
Said Shaiye is an Autistic + ADHD Somali Writer, Photographer & Filmmaker. He was a 2024 MacDowell Fellow & won a Minnesota State Arts Grant to lead a BIPOC Neurodivergent Writing Workshop. He was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize by Indiana Review for his essay “Sneak a Uzi on the Island in my Army Jacket lining.” His first edition of Are You Borg Now?, was a 2022 Minnesota Book Award Finalist in Creative Nonfiction & Memoir.
He has published poetry & prose in Indiana Review, Texas Review, Obsidian, Brittle Paper, Pithead Chapel, 580 Split, and elsewhere.
He is a writing professor in Minneapolis.
“Why should one write? This is the question that pervades Said Shaiye’s experimental approach to memoir in Are You Borg Now? This book offers many different kinds of answers to such a question, answers that involve facing the effects of trauma and violence with courage, honesty, and a willingness to risk vulnerability. One reason to write is to call forth a voice in solidarity with others who suffer. Shaiye is a writer who transforms the pain of alienation into beautifully lyric writing and from that writing springs a profound faith that one is never really alone.” -Kathryn Nuernberger, author of The Witch of Eye

Douglas Kearney has published nine books ranging from poetry to essays. In 2023, Optic Subwoof, a collection of his Bagley Wright lectures, won the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Prize for Poetry Criticism and the CLMP Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. His seventh, Sho, (Wave Books) is a Griffin Poetry Prize and Minnesota Book Award winner and a National Book Award, Pen America, and Kingsley Tufts Award finalist. Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities where he is a McKnight Presidential Fellow.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY

Movie Night Out! TriLingua Presents "Despicable Me 4"
2025-08-05 20:30 - 22:00 | MN
Movie Night Out! TriLingua Presents “Despicable Me 4”
Tuesday, August 5, 2025, 8:30 p.m.
1105 Greenbrier Street Paul, MN 55106
After all the Night Out celebrations, join TriLingua Cinema and the rest of the East Side Freedom Library crew for a FREE OUTDOOR SCREENING of Despicable Me 4 on the ESFL lawn!
We’ll be grilling up some popcorn and popping hot dogs on the ESFL lawn!
Synopsis
The fourth outing for the popular Despicable franchise sees Gru, Lucy, and their girls facing off against Maxime Le Mal, Gru’s old high school classmate who now possesses the power of a half human, half cockroach supervillain.
This film is rated PG and runs for 134 minutes. Parents and caregivers are encouraged to consult Common Sense Media for more information.
This film will be screened in English with English subtitles.
Trailer

Black August: Letter Writing to Honor Revolutionary Prisoner's Movement
2025-08-10 15:00 - 17:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Black August: Letter Writing to Honor Revolutionary Prisoner’s Movement
Sunday 8/10: Easy Side Freedom Library (1105 Greenbrier St, St Paul) at 3:00 p.m.

We’re hosting letter writing to political prisoners at the East Side Freedom Library!

Join the Party for Socialism and Liberation in commemorating Black August! We’re rolling out a series of events this month to honor the revolutionary prisoner’s movement borne out of the Black Liberation struggle in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

We’ll also discuss some of the history of mass incarceration and political prisoners in the United States, as well as the fightback that has endured across generations.
Black August is honored every year to commemorate the fallen freedom fighters of the Black Liberation Movement, to call for the release of political prisoners in the United States, to condemn the oppressive conditions of U.S. prisons, and to emphasize the continued importance of the Black Liberation struggle. In short, the principles of Black August are: “study, fast, train, fight.”

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

Book Event: Nordic Socialism by Pelle Dragsted in Conversation with Gary Kaunonen
2025-08-10 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Book Event: Nordic Socialism by Pelle Dragsted, with Gary Kaunonen
Sunday, August 10, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library
1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul., MN 55106
This event is free and open to everyone. Registration requested: Sign up HERE!
Join us as the East Side Freedom Library welcomes author and Danish parliament member Pelle Dragsted to discuss his book Nordic Socialism: The Path Toward a Democratic Economy. He will be in conversation with scholar and award-winning author Gary Kaunonen.
In recent years, the Nordic countries have been the envy of the world for their economic success, institutional stability, and consistently high levels of social happiness. But are they socialist? Several prominent members of the American right think so. They may find a surprising ally in Pelle Dragsted, a member of the Danish parliament and the leader of the socialist political party Enhedslisten (Red-Green Alliance). In Dragsted’s studied conclusion, Denmark and the rest of the Nordic countries are indeed already socialist, but only in part. The dangers faced by Norden come from the unhealthy encroachment of capitalism.
Joining Dragsted will be Gary Kaunonen, author of Flames of Discontent: The 1916 Iron Ore Strike, which chronicles the labor activism in the early 20th century Iron Range, largely catalyzed by Finnish immigrants.
Pelle Dragsted is the leader of the Enhedslisten party in Denmark and a representative in the Folketing. He is the author of Nordisk Socialisme: På vej mod en demokratisk økonomi, which was first published in Danish to great acclaim.
Gary Kaunonen, Ph.D., is a historian of culture, labor, and immigration and a documentary filmmaker. His work includes the 2018 Hognander Minnesota History Award winner, Flames of Discontent: A History of the 1916 Minnesota Iron Ore Strike, and two award-winning books about Michigan, Challenge Accepted: A Finnish Immigrant Response to Industrial America in Michigan’s Copper Country and Community in Conflict: A Working-class History of the 1913–14 Michigan Copper Strike and the Italian Hall Tragedy. Kaunonen’s documentary “Northern Minnesota’s Labor Wars” looks at strikes in 1916 and 1917 and their significance to World War I–era political deportations and repression.
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE FOR THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY!
Registration requested: Sign up HERE!

Join us for our annual Labor Solidarity Picnic!
2025-09-06 13:00 - 16:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
At the East Side Freedom Library
Please join us for a celebration of workers making history, from newly unionized locals to those winning first contracts.
Hear from:

AFSCME locals at the MN Historical Society & Science Museum,
Macalester College staff & student workers,
University of Minnesota workers,

… and more!

Great food and refreshments with Bernie & Mike on the grill!
Live music!
Information tables!
Kids’ games!

Cracked Walnut Presents: "Expressions!" and Writers for Democratic Action (Jarvenpa, Hasse, Kysar, Kleber-Diggs, Isaac)
2025-09-18 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Cracked Walnut Presents: “Expressions!” and Writers for Democratic Action
Featuring Diane Jarvenpa, Margaret Hasse, Kathryn Kysar, Michael Kleber-Diggs and Donna Isaac
Thursday, September 18, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St., St. Paul, MN 55106
The East Side Freedom Library is thrilled to host the latest installment of this year’s Cracked Walnut Poetry Festival, “Expressions!” Poets/writers from Writers for Democratic Action will read works speaking out on political, social, and cultural occurrences in our country.
Bios
Diane Jarvenpa is the author of six books of poetry. She has received The Midwest Independent Publishers Association Award and Artist Initiative grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She is a teaching artist with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project MN and the East Side Arts Council. As a singer- songwriter she performs and records under the name Diane Jarvi.
Margaret Hasse was among the remarkable generation of Minnesota poets who came of age in the 1970s and & 1980s. Her first book, Stars Above, Stars Below, was published by New Rivers in 1984, Press, followed by In a Sheep’s Eye, Darling, Milkweed Editions. Forty years and many publications later, including five with Nodin Press, Margaret’s most recent book, Belongings, was released in 2024. Her poems are a rich tapestry of “belonging” that extend from cherished personal memories outward into a skein of relationships and concerns, including poems about the current assault on American democracy.
Kathryn Kysar is the 2025 winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Program’s George Garrett Award for Outstanding Service to Literature and recipient of a 2024 Creative Individual Minnesota State Arts Board grant. Her poetry books include Dark Lake and Pretend the World, and she edited Riding Shotgun: Women Write about Their Mothers, and she has published recently in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Sequestrum, Slag Glass City, and The Under Review. She teaches creative writing at the Loft Literary Center and Anoka-Ramsey Community College.
Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. He is the author of My Weight in Water, a memoir about his complicated relationship with lap swimming (forthcoming with Spiegel & Grau, 2026). Michael’s debut poetry collection, Worldly Things, won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. His poems and essays often explore themes of intimacy, community, empathy, and grace, practices he believes are simultaneously distinct and interdependent. Michael is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature, and he teaches creative writing at Hamline University and Augsburg University and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. (photo by Martin Diggs)
Poet Donna Isaac is a teaching artist and organizer of community readings and workshops; she taught full-time for 40 years. Published work includes Footfalls (Pocahontas Press); Tommy (Red Dragonfly Press); Holy Comforter (Red Bird Chapbooks); Persistence of Vision (Finishing Line Press), In the Tilling (Finishing Line Press), and writing work in over fifty literary journals. <donnaisaacpoet.com>

Panel Discussion: THE FIGHT FOR MORE TIME - A CAMPAIGN THAT CAN REVITALIZE OUR UNIONS
2025-09-27 13:00 - 15:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Join us for a panel discussion featuring MAPE activists, and take part in a conversation
about how we can make our unions stronger while fighting for more time for ourselves.
This past year, members of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) launched an
internal campaign to educate and organize members about the possibilities of seeking a 32 hour work
week. They organized a union committee and collaborated with a network of advocates beyond MAPE
called “WorkFourMN.” In mere months, they inspired 2500 rank-and-file state workers to sign a petition
advocating for a 32 hour work week, drawing many into becoming union members, and participated in
conversations, meetings, and co-dreaming about how all Minnesotans can have more time outside of work.
While MAPE did not win a 32 hour work week in their 2025 negotiations, there is much that workers and unions can learn from their experience.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH 1-3PM @ The East Side Freedom Library
There is a wheelchair accessible entrance with an elevator for those that may need it.

Freaks (1932) — special screening with Dan Chaon
2025-10-03 19:00 - 21:00 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
Event hosted at the EAST SIDE FREEDOM LIBRARY, in collaboration with our dear friends of TriLingua Cinema.
Tod Browning’s notorious 1932 film Freaks remains one of the most unsettling and radical movies Hollywood ever produced. Banned for decades, the film shocked audiences with its depiction of circus performers whose community, bonds, and dignity stand in stark contrast to the cruelty and greed of the so-called “normal” world.
On Friday, October 3 at 7:00 PM at the East Side Freedom Library, join Dan Chaon—National Book Award–finalist and author of the new novel One of Us—for an introduction and post-screening discussion exploring the film’s historical context and its disturbing relevance today.
When Freaks was released, the American eugenics movement was in full swing: laws permitting forced sterilizations were on the books in dozens of states, and the rhetoric of “fitness” and “purity” was considered mainstream science. Nearly a century later, those ideas echo again in our political and cultural landscape, whether in debates over disability rights, reproductive autonomy, or the rhetoric of Silicon Valley elites who imagine a world engineered for the “genetically superior.” The resurgence of eugenic thinking on the American right—couched in the language of efficiency, meritocracy, and bio-optimization—makes Browning’s strange, defiant vision more urgent than ever.
This film is Not Rated. Parents or guardians are encouraged to consult the IMDB Parents’ guide here.
This film will be screened in English with English subtitles.
Trailer

Book Discussion with pre-eminent scholar Marcus Rediker: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO KNOW THE HISTORY OF THE RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY?
2025-10-06 19:00 - 20:30 | East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St, Saint Paul, MN, 55106
East Side Freedom Library
Monday, October 6, 2025, 7pm
Join historian Marcus Rediker, author of the new book, FREEDOM SHIP: THE UNCHARTED HISTORY OF ESCAPING SLAVERY BY SEA, for a conversation about the many ways that enslaved men and women, and their accomplices, resisted slavery in the United States, and how this is relevant to our understanding of the ways workers can organize — and are organizing — today.

As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South, finding safe harbor along a network of passageways across North America now known as the Underground Railroad. Yet imagery of fugitives ushered clandestinely from safe house to safe house fails to capture the full breadth of these harrowing journeys: many escapes took place not by land but by sea.
Deeply researched and grippingly told, Freedom Ship offers a groundbreaking new look into the secret world of stowaways and the vessels that carried them to freedom across the North and into Canada. Sprawling through the intricate riverways of the Carolinas to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay to Boston’s harbors, these tales illuminate the little-known stories of freedom seekers who turned their sights to the sea—among them the legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, one of the Underground Railroad’s most famous architects.
Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. His “histories from below,” including The Slave Ship: A Human History, have won numerous awards, and have been translated into nineteen languages worldwide. His books include Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age; Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Pirates and the Anglo-American World; Many Middle Passages: Forced Migrations and the Making of the Modern World, and The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (with Peter Linebaugh). He has produced a film, Ghosts of Amistad, with director Tony Buba, and written a play, The Return of Benjamin Lay, with playwright Naomi Wallace. The Freedom Ship is Marcus’ new book, just published.
