As publisher and editor of the Bay State Banner, I am occasionally invited to take part in media events around the city and most recently had the pleasure of attending a GBH media forum where I met Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress. The first professional librarian to hold the post since 1974, she was also the first woman and African American put in charge of the world’s most important library.
Less than 48 hours later, President Donald Trump fired her without explanation. The fact that President Obama named her to the 10-year position in 2016 certainly worked against her in the eyes of the White House, which has mounted a crusade against so-called wokeism since Trump took office in January.
Hayden, 72, received an abrupt dismissal notice via email on May 8. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt later made it clear there was no room for someone promoting diversity, equity and knowledge in the administration. “We felt she did not fit the needs of the American people,” said Leavitt of Hayden, who had led an “Of the People” initiative to diversify the library’s collection of works from Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander authors.
During my conversations with Hayden as well as the GBH panel discussion, she shared the importance of preserving and teaching the full breadth of our nation’s history through the Library of Congress, which serves as the official record-keeper of our country.
Her comments came amid a broad effort by the federal government under Trump to erase or minimize African American history through attacks on the National Museum of African American History and Culture, defunding grants to institutions like Boston’s Museum of African American History and banning books and pulling references to history-making Black pioneers like Jackie Robinson from federal websites.
“What’s at risk is a loss of a more complete picture of the history of the country,” Hayden told GBH during an interview, “and the people who have toiled, contributed to it and have lived it.”
During our conversation, the distinguished librarian – author of several books and the former president of the American Library Association – asked about the history of the Bay State Banner and how I ended up owning the historic 60-year-old publication. After listening with great interest, she graciously asked if I would work with her to make sure that the six decades of Banner journalism would be preserved in the Library of Congress.
I responded that we would gladly help catalogue the history of Boston’s Black community within the archives of the greatest library on earth, with its collection of over 180 million items dating back to its founding in 1800.
Though our conversation wasn’t long, Hayden’s profound commitment to documenting everyone’s American history was absolutely clear. Throughout a career that brought her to top positions in the Chicago and Baltimore public libraries, Hayden has worked tirelessly to expand the franchise of knowledge to all and to make it more reflective of everyone’s experience.
The 838 miles of bookshelves in the Library of Congress are richer, not poorer, for including titles dedicated to the inconvenient facts of a country constantly evolving to live up to its founding principles of equality and opportunity for all. No amount of white-washing and empty triumphalism by Trump and his historically blinkered cronies will change that.
Hayden’s unjust dismissal is yet another example of the small-minded removal of talented public servants from office. Between the ham-handed efforts of Elon Musk’s DOGE machine and summary firings by executive agency goons installed by Trump, over 120,000 federal workers have been shown the door. These are not faceless bureaucrats holding no-show jobs or idling away the day in employee lounges. They worked for Social Security, ensuring benefits go to retirees. They worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs, providing health care for the men and women who served our country in uniform. They were among the thousands of Americans who served as aid ambassadors in foreign countries, delivering food and medicine, clean water and education in the name of freedom and democracy.
In some cases, lawsuits have stemmed the tide of departures. In others, dismissals have been reversed after the mass layoffs made it clear that critically needed public services, like air traffic control, could not continue to safeguard the American people without bringing employees back.
In the case of Trump’s disgraceful dismissal of Carla Hayden, he appointed a legal flunky with no experience in library science as the interim Librarian of Congress. Todd Blanche is now running the show at the ornate marble building that faces the U.S. Capitol across its manicured East Lawn. Before serving as deputy attorney general, Blanche was a member of the president’s defense team in the New York hush-money trial that ended with Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts.
For all the president’s talk about restoring competence and quality to federal service, fealty and subservience apparently count most to our grifter-in-chief, who just this week opened a new front in self-enrichment with his crypto-currency scheme, not to mention offering sanctuary to white South African farmers while shutting off the welcoming Torch of Liberty to others. The annals of history will one day chronicle Trump’s misrule. You’ll undoubtedly be able to read about it in the Library of Congress. But maybe not today.
Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner
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