This blog was written by Serena Guest, library collections associate, at Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.

Did you know that with your Charlotte Mecklenburg Library card you have access to over 30,000 independent movies and documentaries? Kanopy offers a multitude of titles for your viewing pleasure and Charlotte Mecklenburg Library customers can view up to 6 films per month. Learn more about Kanopy here.

Check out the top five titles Charlotte Mecklenburg Library users have viewed and enjoyed over the past month:

As They Made Us (2022) - Abigail (Dianna Agron), a divorced mother of two, who is struggling to balance the dynamic forces within her dysfunctional family as she attempts to cultivate new love. This movie is rated R.

A Promise (2013) - Alan Rickman stars in this simmering early 20^th- century love story about a triangle between an aging factory owner, his young bride (Rebecca Hall) and his handsome protégé. This movie is rated R.

Spencer (2021) The marriage of Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) and Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for Christmas festivities at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate. But this year, things will be profoundly different. Spencer is the imagining of what might have happened during those few fateful days. This movie is rated R.

God’s Pocket (2014) - Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christina Hendricks star in this deliciously twisted comedy about life and death on the mean streets of Philadelphia. This movie is rated R.

Monster Be Good! (2012) - With Monster Be Good!, little ones are invited to lead some wily monsters into becoming more well-behaved happy creatures. This short kids movie is rated G and also available in Spanish and Hindi.

Happy viewing!

This blog was written as part of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's Black Lives Matter program initiative. Learn  more about the program and corresponding events here.

As February 2022 and Black History Month comes to an end, the NFL, a pro sport dominated by Black athletes, is still making headlines. The NFL celebrated its Super Bowl contest on February 13 and ended its season but the news for aspiring coaches is not over.  

This month began with former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores filing a lawsuit against the NFL, and   three NFL teams including the Dolphins, claiming racial discrimination in hiring practices. NPR reported in a Monday sports article that Flores said in his lawsuit “that the NFL is ‘managed much like a plantation’ and that its 32 owners, none of whom is Black, profit from the labor of its players — 70% of whom are Black. He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the league's other Black head coaches, offensive and defensive coordinators and quarterback coaches and general managers, as well as African American candidates for those positions.”

For weeks, Flores continued to job-hunt and recently accepted a new job last week with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The team announced he will become its senior defensive assistant and linebacker coach.  Flores’ lawsuit, however, is still ongoing.

The NFL initially disagreed with the lawsuit claims but NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is reversing its stance by saying the league’s existing efforts to hire minority coaches are “unacceptable.”

This subject is addressed in the fourth chapter of the new John Feinstein book, Raise a Fist, Take a Knee: Race and the Illusion of Progress in Modern Sports. Entitled “Still Climbing the Wall,” the chapter includes discussions with former Black head coach Tony Dungy about Blacks and coaching. He can ignore limited hiring cycles for Black candidates in coaching but bemoans the results. “Two of the last twenty head-coaching coaching hires in the NFL have been African Americans,” he said. “That’s not a good number.” And Flores was one of the two hires.

Discrimination in sports has been a large historical topic whether looking at the stories of the determined Jackie Robinson integrating Major League Baseball during the 1940s or the flamboyant boxer Jack Johnson in the 1900s fighting white boxers. Serving as a forebear, Robinson had many to follow with dreams of opportunities and success. But the path for the Black athlete in the United States is not surefooted with the simple focus of sports and family. As a microcosm of greater society, the sports world was surrounded by the one-time Jim Crow era along with still present racist attitudes. When facing those situations, some Black athletes turned to different methods including activism to confront racism.     

In 2016, then NFL player Colin Kaepernick began silent protests of police brutality and racial inequality by taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem at the start of those football games. For a period, some followed his lead—intended as an act of peaceful protest—until criticism grew when others called the act unpatriotic. The football season ended and Kaepernick was released from his team to never play in the NFL again. The following year, he filed a lawsuit against the NFL that he was blackballed for his protests. In 2019, Kaepernick withdrew the lawsuit after a confidential settlement was reached. 

This month, another challenge to discrimination is playing out with the NFL being a direct participant. Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL loomed as another Black head coach, Lovie Smith, joined the Houston Texans and Mike McDaniel, of biracial descent, replaced Flores at Miami. To date, the NFL can claim to have five head coaches of color, three of whom are African American including McDaniel.   

Want to learn more about this topic? Black athletes are involved multiple sports including basketball, baseball, golf, tennis, among others. The disturbing conclusion is that these life stories include talented Black people being ignored, marginalized or feared. It is a cycle they confront with some major wins.

The Library has multiple titles about this subject for adults, teenagers and children readers including e-books, streaming videos and more.  Check the separate booklists for additional readings.

This blog was written by Lawrence Turner, adult services librarian at South County Regional Library.

Thank you to everyone that was able to join our Second Annual Celebration of the National African American Read-In. Our panelists did a wonderful job at discussing the lack of representation and diversity in children’s literature. Our authors also provided a read-aloud of their books.

Check out their titles below:

1. Harrison Martin: I want a Pet; The Bacon Tree; B is For Bacon Tree: Bacon A to Z
2. Shaketa Richardson: I am! I can! And I will!
3. Shirell Bates: Woolly Bully
4. Serenity Rankin: What Will I Be…?
5. Richye Porter: Big Brother Big Shoes; The NO that Meant GO! Go Harder!!!!
6. Charlitta Hatch: Black Boy Joy; Black Boy Joy Christmas Countdown
7. Dr. Janaka Lewis: Brown All Over; Freedom Narratives of African American Women; Bold Nia Maria Passes the Test; Dr. King is Tired Too!!

If you missed the celebration, don’t worry, you can get all caught up HERE and stay tuned to the Reading in Color Playlist on our YouTube channel for additional resources, and recommended black reads.

Download the accompanying PDF from this year's event with more reading recommendations, author bios, activities and more.

Libraries are houses of words.

They’re in the books on shelves, in magazines, in DVDs and in audiobooks.

At Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, those words come in 14 different languages. Including English, the Library offers resources in American Sign Language, Arabic, Chinese (traditional and simplified), French, German, Gujarati (spoken mostly in India), Hindi, Korean, Japanese, Marathi (spoken mostly in India), Russian, Spanish, Telugu (spoken mostly in India) and Vietnamese. While it’s not technically a separate language, the Library also offers materials in braille.

As our community grows and diversifies, the Library grows along with it, selecting accessible resources for families who speak many different languages.

The world languages collection, which includes nearly 5,400 print books in all other world languages not including Spanish, floats across the 20-branch system to go where they’re needed. However, some materials get priority at certain Library locations because of a greater need for a specific language.
South County Regional Library has a larger collection of Hindi materials, for example, while South Boulevard Library has a larger collection in Spanish.

Several locations have even created world languages “centers” where adults’ and children’s materials are housed together in all languages.

By far, the Library offers more Spanish materials than others (nearly 22,000 print books alone) to match the community’s needs. OverDrive/Libby, one of the Library’s digital platforms, has a Spanish collection that is frequently updated with new titles.  The Library also offers a variety of bilingual materials in English and Spanish to help readers learn a new language.

But for those families who speak Hindi? The Library has movies on hoopla for them, too. French-speaking customers can listen to music or read e-books in their language on hoopla, read French books on TumbleBook Library or even read scholarly titles on ProQuest in French. There are Films On Demand in American Sign Language, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. Explore the new World Languages Collection in OverDrive/Libby.  This collection features adult and children’s titles in French and German, and children’s titles in Korean.  Magazines in French, German, and Spanish including Elle Mexico, GQ Mexico and Cosmopolitan France are available for free through OverDrive/Libby magazines.

Of course, you, reading this now, speak English. But what if you wanted to one day read books in Russian, Arabic or Japanese?

The Library can help with that, too!

Through its free online language learning software, Transparent Language, the Library offers a digital language-learning classroom to make that a reality.

More than anything, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is a safe space for families of all kinds and of all different backgrounds. If you would like to suggest the Library add a title in one of the collected languages, make a purchase request! We’re always looking for ways to help build a stronger community.

The South Boulevard Library is located on South Boulevard, just 0.60 miles from the Lynx Blue Line Scaleybark Station. Originally opened in 1985 as the Scaleybark Library, this location is a 18,850-square foot building and a convenient location for the many customers in this growing area along South Boulevard. The new branch includes new, reimagined spaces for both children and teens, public computers, children’s computers, a large community room, a programming room, a quiet reading room, a calming room, five group study rooms, a computer lab and a laptop bar for customers who want to bring their own devices, many collaborative spaces and a vending café. The South Boulevard Library has one of the largest Spanish and bilingual (Spanish/English) collections to serve its large Spanish-speaking community, and growing Arabic and French Children’s collections.

Around South Boulevard, you’ll find different institutions working together to connect and build their diverse community. The groups mentioned below come from distinct roots, but it’s important to note that many of them work together frequently to create steadfast systems of support. 

Through the Harris YMCA South Boulevard Initiative, the Harris YMCA has established a partnership with the South Boulevard Forest Hill Church to provide support through multifaceted means. Most of the work done through this initiative is in Spanish and is free of charge aiming to assist many of the immigrant and less affluent populations in the South Boulevard corridor. Monthly workshops are presented by experts in the field of parenting, mental health, immigration, and other vital topics to assist with information and acculturation. Multiple levels of Spanish and English classes are offered at a cost, though free conversation classes are available to registered and non-registered participants. Registration for English as a Second Language is open the first week of January, third week of March, and first week of September. While registration is required for most of their programs, participants do not need to be members of the YMCA or the church.

The Learning Help Centers of Charlotte (LHCC) is a non-profit organization that works to empower vulnerable communities by providing educational, spiritual, and social support. Together with partnerships and volunteers, they provide cultural assimilation where the community learns and celebrates Día de lo Muertos, Las Posadas, Veteran’s Day, and Easter among other holidays around the world. About 90% of LHCC’s attendees are from various Latin-American cultures. The remaining 10% of participants are of other ethnicities, creating a diverse organization. LHCC mobilizes their efforts through advocacy, community integration and collective learning. Some of the enrichment programs they provide include field trips, weekly tutoring sessions, summer camps and parent mentorship programs.

The South End Spanish Club is a conversation group that meets just up the street from the Library and occasionally throughout different South Charlotte areas. The group is made up of both native speakers and novice Spanish language learners. Meetings are usually organized in informal atmospheres, such as breweries, which allows for both an engaging and permissive learning environment. Its focus is to provide a welcoming space where people from all walks of life can connect through language, culture and experiences. Immersive learning activities (like sports, board games and artistic projects) are planned on a rotating calendar. Their schedule can be found on the South End Spanish Club Meetup or Facebook page.

Collinswood Language Academy is a K-8^th dual language school that follows the International Spanish Academy program (ISA) curriculum. ISA recognizes high performing schools in the United States and supports them to deliver a Spanish-English dual language immersion curriculum. Collinswood is a magnet school and its mission is to “cultivate a passion for learning and inspire students to achieve academic excellence, develop bilingual-biliterate mastery and embrace socio-cultural competence.” In many aspects, the school prepares students to be global citizens. Students are supported by multilingual staff who assist students as teachers, psychologist, counselors and administrators. Through their monthly bulletin, yearly International Parade, and other cultural events, Collinswood embraces, educates and values the inclusion of various cultures around the world. To attend this school, upcoming kindergarteners must enter the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) Student Placement Lottery called CMS School Choice. Students coming into other grades must take an admission test also provided by CMS Student Placement.

The Latin American Chamber of Commerce (LACC) seeks to increase the visibility and success of Latin American Businesses. Various outlets are established within and outside the organization to assist the individual owner and overall business organization. Events are hosted throughout the year to provide educational and networking opportunities, frequently hosting Latinos and Non-Latino presenters from all over the world. One of the programs the organization runs is the LACCC Education Program which offers a place to explore entrepreneurial interests and build leadership development for entrepreneurs, professionals and youth.

New to Charlotte? Explore other neighborhoods through the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library blog and WelcomeCLT, a digital space created for newcomers to Charlotte.

Resources:

• South Boulevard Branch Library – 4029 South Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28209 | 704-416-6400
• Harris YMCA - 5900 Quail Hollow Rd, Charlotte, NC 28210 | 704-716-6800
• South Boulevard Forest Hill Church – 6210 Old Pineville Rd, Charlotte, NC 28217 | 704-716-8700
• South End Spanish Club – Charlotte, NC 28217 | Facebook
• Learning Help Centers of Charlotte (LHCC) - 1901 Archdale Rd, Charlotte, NC, 28210 | 980-297-5114
• Collinswood Language Academy – 5621 Flagstaff Dr, Charlotte, NC 28210 | 980-343-5820
• Latin American Chamber of Commerce – 145 C Scaleybark Rd, Charlotte, NC 28209 | 704-237-0552

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This blog post was written by Ana Robles, library assistant for Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.