Title
Celebrating 10 Years Since the Founding of the East Side Freedom Library and Proclaiming Saturday, June 3, 2023, as Beth Cleary and Peter Rachleff Day in the City of St. Paul.
Body
WHEREAS, Beth Cleary and Peter Rachleff both joined the faculty of Macalester College in 1982 and hold respective PhDs from the University of California – Berkeley and the University of Pittsburg; and
WHEREAS, Cleary is a director, writer, and theatre historian whose work focuses on dissident theatre practice, ensemble performance, and women artists led her to be recognized with the Oscar Brockett Outstanding Teacher of Theatre by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education; and
WHEREAS, Rachleff is a labor historian and author whose emphasis on U.S. History led him to serve as the chairperson of Macalester’s History department and faculty coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, and was recognized by the North American Labor History Conference with the Nat Weinberg Award for Lifetime Achievement in Labor History; and
WHEREAS, Cleary and Rachleff planted their roots on the East Side of Saint Paul in 1998 and combined their passions for theatre arts and labor history to realize a decade’s long desire to create a lasting public archive and community gathering place in the city’s most ethnically diverse and economically challenged neighborhood; and
WHEREAS, Cleary and Rachleff founded the East Side Freedom Library to bring life back into the former Arlington Hills Public Library, one of three historic Carnegie buildings located at 1105 Greenbrier Street in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood; and
WHEREAS, the mission of the East Side Freedom Library is to inspire solidarity, advocate for justice, and work toward equity through grassroots storytelling and research methods that both honor and preserve the history and identity of the East Side; and
WHEREAS, the East Side Freedom Library houses several non-circulating research collections with an innovative database and finding aid of 35,000 books and materials, and a variety of visual and recorded artworks that are utilized by all kinds of scholars and schoolkids; and
WHEREAS, Cleary and Rachleff served as co-executive directors of the East Side Freedom Library since its inception in 2013 through 2022, and today are Directors Emeritus on the Board of the Library, while continuing to serve the East Side of Saint Paul as valuable community members, leaders, and advocates; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that the Saint Paul City Council celebrates 10 years since the founding of the East Side Freedom Library; and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Saint Paul City Council hereby honors their contributions to the East Side and proclaims Saturday, June 3, 2023, to be Beth Cleary and Peter Rachleff Day in the City of Saint Paul.