Black History Month - quotation


There is no life that does not contribute to history.
Dorothy West (1909?-1998)

Black History Month - quotation



"The greatest struggle of any oppressed group in a racist society is the struggle to reclaim collective memory and identity. At the level of culture, racism seeks to deny people of African, American Indian, Asian, and Latino descent their own voices, histories, and tradiitons."
Manning Marable (1950- )

Black History Month - quotation


“As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements and possibilities of language; every human use of words that is joyful, or honest or new, because experience is new... But as a Black poet and writer, I hate words that cancel my name and my history and the freedom of my future: I hate the words that condemn and refuse the language of my people in America.”
June Jordan (1936 - 2002)

Black History Month - quotation


All History is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.
Alice Walker (1944-)

Black History Month - quotation


"I learned a history not then written in books but one passed from generation to generation on the steps of moonlit porches and beside dying fires in one-room houses, a history of great-grandparents and of slavery and of the days following slavery; of those who lived still not free, yet who would not let their spirits be enslaved."
Mildred Taylor (born 1943)

Black History Month - quotation



I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.
Toni Morrison (born 1931)

Black History Month - quotation


There's no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively - I am one with the people.
Huey Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989)


The Black Panther Party Platform (October 1966)

Black History Month - quotation


“Truth is powerful and it prevails.”
Sojourner Truth (1797 - 1883)

Black History Month - quotation


"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
Frederick Douglass (1818 – 1895) Frederick Douglass died 116 years ago today, February 20.

Reminder - Library Closed Monday!


REMEMBER The Excelsior Branch and all SFPL branches will be closed Monday, February 21 for Presidents' Day.

Parking Enforcement
MUNI information
BART holiday schedule

Black History Month - quotation


“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” - Audre Lorde, writer, poet and activist (1934 – 1992)

Black History Month quotation


I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler. - Paul Robeson (1898-1976), quoted in Here I Stand p.108 (Beacon Press Edition, 1988)

Black History Month


It's late in the month to mention this, but there are a lot of programs and exhibitions at SFPL for Black History Month. Here at Excelsior we have a small display of books in the entrance wall case. You are welcome to ask a librarian to pull a book out of the case for you to check out, or to recommend other books on the subject. People are also borrowing books from the "Check Out the Civil Rights Movement" and Martin Luther King Jr. displays.

And here is a quotation from author and playwright Zora Neale Hurston (1903 - 1960):
"Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground."

New Editor for the Blog

The Excelsior blog has a new editor. We apologize for any recent gaps in service and hope to be up to date and running as usual from now on. Thank you for your patience!
- Jane

LIBRARY CLOSED - February 21, Presidents' Day


The Excelsior Branch and all SFPL branches will be closed Monday, February 21 for Presidents' Day.

Parking Enforcement
MUNI information
BART holiday schedule

First Monday Movies - Shadow of a Doubt



Shadow of a Doubt (1943/108 mins.)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton) arrives in peaceful Santa Rosa, California for an extended visit. The film's chilling prologue has already revealed Uncle Charlie's identity as the notorious Merry Widow Murderer. The suspense grows almost unbearable as the trust and admiration of his niece and namesake (Teresa Wright) gives way to dread and suspicion. This witty thriller strips away the façade of small-town tranquility to reveal evil where it's least expected.


Monday, February 7, 6:30pm