Stealing a Library

STEALING A LIBRARY documents a community battle to protect their Public Library from censorship and privatization - and winning!

The residents of Huntington Beach, CA are an example of how local organizing and cross-partisan collaboration may prove to be the best option to protect, preserve, and save public institutions. Public Libraries are increasingly caught up in a National trend of extreme representatives targeting our public institutions with the goal to censor stories, curate information, and even mute historical accounts not in alignment with far Right ideologies.

Libraries are the last bastion in any community of a free, safe space for everyone - regardless of politics, religion, education, social or economic status, gender, or age. We are documenting an ongoing story populated with activism, lawsuits, special elections, and a City Council stacked with seven MAGA conservatives, losing to a community that rebuked censorship and government control of our First Amendment right to information and to read freely.