Radical Hood Library: A BIPOC book sanctuary

Lauryn Jones recalls her experience going to Leavey Library as one of being treated with an exasperated indifference.

“They really act like you are such a burden for walking into a library that is literally for you,” said the senior majoring in English, letting out a big sigh to imitate the stoic passiveness she received stepping into the library.

She felt this experience in most of the libraries she strolled into on and off-campus — then came Noname’s Radical Hood Library.

“If you’re passing by, they’re like, ‘Hey do you wanna come in? It’s a new library. Come check it out. We have some candy … We have some free bookmarks if you wanna come in,’”Jones said. “They just want you to be there.”

The Radical Hood Library, also known as Book Club Headquarters, is a vibrant community space and literary initiative about 10 minutes from USC’s campus along Jefferson Blvd. Its conception is the brainchild of Fatimah Warner, most commonly known as the revered Chicago rapper and wordsmith Noname. 

The space contradicts the common notions of what one might expect of a library. Instead of the quiet stillness that many students are accustomed to, you can hear avid chattering from Noname Book Club meetings and the echo of documentary screenings in the open space on some nights. There are also no overdue fees if one happens to hold on to a book for too long.

What’s most remarkable, however, are the titles one sees upon stepping into the bright interior illuminated by the Los Angeles sun. Instead of combing through the Dewey Decimal system, you can pick up Angela Davis’ “Are Prison Obsolete?” from the prison-abolition section or flip through ideological musings from the renowned West Indian social philosopher Frantz Fanon.

From books on labor unions to graphic novels mapping the history of the Black Panthers, the library is a hub for radical, socialist, queer and Black and brown literature that might be banned or left out from public libraries and school curriculums.

After Angelique Prater, a sophomore majoring in Latin studies, learned the Library was just 10 minutes away, she and her roommate rushed to visit it. The space was perfect for Prater, who felt more connected to the South Central community members than with her mostly white, affluent peers, especially as someone of Latinx and Indigenous descent.

“Having the Radical Hood Library in a traditionally underserved Black community in conjunction with the fact that they also help people who are incarcerated, it allows the ideology of communism, socialism, anti-police, anti-capitalism to be something that underserved communities can learn a lot more about so that they can actually feel like they resonate with it,” Prater said.

Warner founded the Radical Hood Library in October 2021 as a headquarters to further develop Noname’s Book Club, where she chooses a book by BIPOC authors every month for thousands of chapter members to read and discuss across the country, in-person or online. It was also another step in furthering her Prison Chapter project, which sends books from the Book Club to incarcerated people throughout the country.

Jones took the opportunity to participate in the physical book club at the library after following Noname’s work for a few years on social media.

“It prioritizes Black and brown people,” Jones said. “We’re all entering the Library, knowing that we have more to learn and we just want to be there and enjoy this space.”

The space became an intellectual playground outside of the brick-and-mortar institution of USC where she spent most of her time studying and feeling tokenized.

Jones felt this alienation in many of her classes. She recalls how in her American literature class, the Black literature portion was reduced to just Frederick Douglass’ autobiography and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.

But at the Radical Hood Library, this Black and brown presence is exalted. She saw people of color be pushed to the forefront.

As someone who grew up in rural Texas with Noname’s smooth, poignant lyricism constantly in the background, Jones was initially mesmerized by Warner’s presence in the Library. 

While there was a bit of fanfare from seeing an adored musician in front of her (along with regulars like actress Quinta Brunson and artist Earl Sweatshirt), the limelight soon dissolved for Lauryn, who saw Warner maneuvering throughout the space with calm ease and even introspection. 

A lack of hierarchy cultivated a climate where individuals could speak freely and disagree with each other, all in the name of collective growth.

“Noname, at least I’ve noticed, has no issue with you trying to speak your mind. Even if it’s completely against what she thinks. She’s just like, ‘Cool. If you want to read some more, here’s my library. I’ll give you a library card,’” Jones said.

To Jones, the space prioritizes the stumbling and awkwardness that comes with wandering into the learning process. In an era of social media call-outs and slip-ups, the library distinguishes itself as a space to intellectually challenge systems and thought processes that individuals might have been conditioned into.

While it’s been a space of intellectual growth, Cortaney Martin-Jones, a junior majoring in creative writing, was also enthralled by the material good the library was creating in the community.

The library defied her prior experiences with libraries as a low-income child in Georgia, where she was often barred from reading books due to overdue fees she simply couldn’t afford to pay. It was among the library’s abolitionist and mutual aid texts that she saw literature materialize into community action. Whether it was through Narcan training or the Prison Chapters, which connects prisoners with radical texts, Martin-Jones admired the tangible change being created.

“I got some training with Narcan and now I carry Narcan around with me everywhere … They’re also doing a lot of things that will tangibly and materially impact people’s lives and save lives,” Martin-Jones said. “And it’s just nice to see a type of education that isn’t just based in theory.” 

It’s amid this conversation of altering conditions for marginalized people that Martin-Jones called back to a Twitter dispute she was in, where she responded to criticisms that a library could not make a substantial change for an underserved community like South Central.

“I understood where they were coming from, but as someone who has been poor — I grew up unhoused and things like that — having public libraries was probably one of the biggest sanctuaries for me as a child,” Martin-Jones said. “It did so much for me to just have a place to go, to read and to be in a community space, to watch movies, different things that libraries put on.”

It’s in this space that Black and brown joy inadvertently becomes radical, even if that revolution may reverberate just through annotated pages, lush plants or simply existing in a temporal moment of peace.

“I research Black joy, just like generally, but [also] specifically in the American literary canon,” said Jones. “So I think that Noname’s Book Club is a really cool place to experience Black joy and to think about Black joy as something that isn’t resistance or rebellion against [or] structured around white supremacy, it’s Black joy for the sake of Black joy, and we all happen to be resisting.”

At the grand opening in early October, the Black joy that Jones speaks of radiated off Jefferson Blvd. Community members shuffled and danced on the concrete pad adjacent to the Library as music pulsed in the background and the tangy spices of vegan Caribbean food wafted in the chilly afternoon air. 

It’s this Black joy which blossoms from the Library that can become a vibrant repose for USC students, like Jones, who carry the uncomfortable weight of reductive curriculums and insensitive students and professors. 

It’s in this environment of peace and unity that these different community members can find common ground towards more tangible goals for the future. This first step towards that common ground is punctuated by a single question Warner asks at Book Club meetings: “What does liberation mean to you?”

“And she asks people across the diaspora. Michael is Caribbean; I’m Black American; I’m from the South; she’s from Chicago; there are Indigenous people at the book club, there are Hispanic people in the book club. So what [does] that mean to them?” said Jones. ”And how can America achieve all, if not almost all of these goals for all these different communities? Is that even possible?”

Even if you may not be able to respond to the question yet, you’re always welcome to flip through the crisp book pages inside the bright blue sanctuary on Jefferson Blvd. And maybe in this space, you might find the answer.