Free Library of Philadelphia workers take their anti-racism protest to board president’s house

Librarians raised their voices Monday morning and stopped traffic in front of the Chestnut Hill home of Pamela Dembe, chair of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s board of trustees, whom they called on to resign or be fired for alleged racially insensitive behavior.

The protest drew about 25 mostly white library employees and seven additional Black employees, who stood across the intersection but said they were in solidarity with the larger group. It was the latest action in a campaign to bring attention to what the protesters said was years of racial inequality suffered by Black library workers.

“This is the only way she’s going to listen to us,” Perry Genovesi, a librarian at the Parkway Central facility, said in explaining why the protest was held outside Dembe’s home.

The protesters did not step on her property, and a contingent of Philadelphia police officers stood on the sidewalk observing the peaceful protest, which lasted a little more than an hour.

Dembe, who was at home, said she would not resign “unless or until the board tells me otherwise.” Asked if she was racist, as the protesters asserted, she replied, “I hope not,” but declined to address specific complaints.

“It was a very small group, about a dozen people,” she said of the protest. “They apparently want to get rid of the entire board and free Mumia.” She was referring to Mumia Abu-Jamal, the political activist serving a life prison sentence for killing a city police officer in 1981.

A number of the protesters noted that Dembe, a retired Common Pleas Court judge, had upheld Abu-Jamal’s sentence in the past. That, they said, was an example of the judge’s racism.

“The Concerned Black Workers of the Free Library of Philadelphia have tried at least four different times to get the board’s attention,” Genovesi, who is white, said in an interview. “From the board there was radio silence, until hundreds of white workers signed a letter of solidarity.”

Tension between library employees and management burst into public in late June when the group released an open letter outlining their grievances.

The letter said they face discrimination on a regular basis, are paid less than white colleagues, and were being asked to return to work without a plan to keep them safe from the coronavirus.

After receiving no response from library president and director Siobhan Reardon, who answered to the board, the Black employees called on her to resign, a demand that was echoed by other library employees and Mayor Jim Kenney.

Reardon, who had led the 54-branch library system for 12 years, announced her resignation last month. But employees expressed outrage that Dembe opposed Reardon’s ouster and praised her after she stepped aside.

“We’ve decided to take this action because Judge Pam Dembe has exhibited racism, prejudice and a seemingly unquenchable thirst for power in her position as the chair of the board of trustees,” Sunita Baliga, a librarian, said in an interview.

She said the judge is just as “guilty” as Reardon of ignoring the concerns of Black employees.

Kalela Williams, director of neighborhood library enrichment programming, said she was glad to see that the movement started by Black employees had grown to include their non-Black coworkers.

“It is necessary that all staff members are involved in what we need to do, which is to demolish the status quo at the Free Library,” she said. “If Pam Dembe does not step down, that would simply mean that we have the same system all over again, and we already know how that worked out.”

Genovesi, Baliga and other speakers used a bullhorn to argue a case they called The People v. Judge Dembe, and in the end, they found her guilty.

“Now is the time for justice, not arrogance. Now is the time for soul searching, not dismissive contempt. Now is the time to listen and be a fierce advocate for change,” librarian Erin Hoopes said in calling on Kenney to help oust Dembe.