Libraries Are Hubs for Citizening - Story 1

Watch this first video story from the Week of Citizening on Instagram or LinkedIn: https://newsletter.baratunde.com/p/1st-story-libraries-are-hubs-for?r=204q7

What if every library in the world was a hub for citizening—a space where people could come together, tell their own stories, and build new ones? It’s already happening. And Cossit Llibrary in downtown Memphis is leading the way.

🎙️ Meet Ena Esco — Innovator-in-Residence for podcast programming. In a city that’s majority Black and shaped by deep economic challenges, Ena is turning a traditional library into a platform for power.

Inside this public library you’ll find:

📸 A podcast studio

🎥 A video + photo lab

🎭 A performance space

All free. All open to the public.

“We live in an era where a lot of people are being silenced. I’m proud to mentor folks and watch them realize: they can say what they truly want to say.” — Ena Esco

This is what it looks like to practice power. To citizen.

🔗 Want more stories like this? Visit https://stories.howtocitizen.com 

Story produced by Tess Novotnoy

This is part of the Week Of Citizening stories jointly amplified by How To Citizen, Jon Alexander, and Baratunde Thurston

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Alright, it worked. It worked, this little voice memo straight
into the podcast feed boom. Who needs a studio and engineers?
Well sometimes we do, but this is quick and dirty.
So Hi, it's Barretonday again and welcome to how the
citizen Ish, at least this week of Citizen Stories, citizen
ing stories. So you heard the launch uh announcement in

(00:25):
the previous item in the feed Today Monday, April fourteenth,
we launched the first actual story and it's a topic
near and dear to my heart. It's libraries. I have
a an audio that you'll hear that sets up the
story and then yeah, you're gonna hear the story of
the Innovator and Residence program at Cosst Library in Memphis, Tennessee,

(00:47):
and a woman named na Esco uh who took a
library that we think of as a quiet place, a
place to consume stories, and helped turn it into a
much louder place, uh, place for people to tell their
own story or come together to do so. And this
is very Black America whose stories are being erased right now.

(01:07):
So find these stories on my Instagram. Baratunde on how
the citizen Instagram spelled like that. On the Citizens Guide
that's John Alexander, and you can also find them on
my LinkedIn or John's LinkedIn. All of that out I'll
have in the show notes on this episode, and you
can sign up to get the daily emails about this

(01:30):
as well as the summary of what we all did together.
If you go to stories dot howdocitizen dot com right
at the tone, the tariff will be five jillion percent boop.
Enjoy the audio of these videos make some noise. If
you love your local library, they have palaces for the people,

(01:50):
places where democracy is actually an action truly open to everyone.
I've even served on the board of the Brooklyn Public Library,
That's how much I love them. So when I think
of citizen as a verb and where we citizen, libraries
are literally first on the list, which is why I
want to share this story first, the story of a

(02:10):
library in Memphis, Tennessee, that is showing up for the people.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
When you think of library, you think of books, librarians
somewhere quiet. This is not that library. My name is
na Esco and I am the innovator in residence for
podcasts programming at Kasid Library, a woman who at Memphis

(02:39):
is majority African American. Right, we do have high poverty
rates as well. So COSCID is positioned in downtown Memphis
where a lot of the poverty is going on. This
is a place for innovation. So you'll come and see
my podcast studio. On the opposite side of me, you
will see the Fatiography videography lab. There is an entire

(03:03):
performance space. Oftentimes you hear patron say, I didn't know
a library had things like this, So that one thing
that they thought that they could never do or participate
in it is available and no cost to them. Here.
I mean that just opens the door for someone to
really create a pathway. We live in an era right

(03:26):
now when a lot of people are being silenced and
I'm so proud to really sit down mentor someone and
they actually feel like they can say what they really
want to say.