“Joy should be our primary source of energy."

I spent time at George Floyd Square (a mile from my house) for the first time in weeks. I was so happy to see the community has built a shelter for the Community BookShelf. Last year it was in an open-sided bus shelter.

Take what you want! Please return when ya can.
Or better yet share w/a friend 💜💜💜
SUPPORT: book wishlist = www.redballoonbookshop.com/wishlist/410

It's maybe 10 square feet?
Several quotes hang on the side of the little library.
Here, James Baldwin:

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

My favorite quotes come from Jeanelle Austin, photo below, lead caretaker of the George Floyd Square--she is featured in the current Vogue magazine (www.vogue.com/article/george-floyd-memorial):

ABOVE: Jeanelle Austin, lead caretaker, in the greenhouse at George Floyd Square, photographed by Drew Arrieta

“It’s important to love and honor and hold and walk with those who are grieving in the best way we know how.

The answer to anti-Blackness, the answer to racism, is building stronger communities.

And what I’ve learned over the past 10 months is that building stronger communities is rooted in the decisions we make to be a neighbor.

It’s so simple—we make it far more complex than it needs to be."

. . .

“I think we have to be careful about letting pain be our primary source of energy,” Austin said.

“I actually think joy should be our primary source of energy.

It’s the joy of justice that calls me and beckons me into this work.”

--Jeanelle Austin, lead caretaker of the George Floyd Square

"What Does It Mean to Build—And Preserve—a George Floyd Memorial?" By Ashley Tyner, Photography by Drew Arrieta, Vogue Magazine, April 29, 2021.

On the side of the former Speedway gas station, now Peoples'way:
"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today."
--Malcolm X

And on the blue board, above:

"WHY HOLD MY TONGUE WHEN I CAN SING?"