Hello everyone! We hope this finds you all well. Please feel free to read this as a pdf document.
Dear Friends,
Our main focus this month has been pressing on with processing the Rainbow Centre/Sumac Centre archive. For more details please see the last newsletter and join us on Sunday 27 September during the Sumac Anniversary weekend. Join us between 12.00pm and 2.00pm for talks, displays, a bookstall, a quiz and zine making. So please put the date in the diary.
We now have reorganised our poster collection. They are now stored flat in acid-free card folders rather than in carboard rolls, so they can be stored and viewed causing less damage. They have the following categories: British Anarchism (Message, Bookfairs, Local Groups, Anarchist Federation, Class War), European Anarchism (by country), Activism in the Americas, Anarchist Internationals (International of Anarchist Federations, CNT), Peace and Ecology, Radical History, LGBTQ+ Arts and Activism, Race, Gender, Internationalism, Intersectionalism.
When you visit you can request a folder and see easily what we have. And we are now in a better position to make the most of your own posters if you would like to entrust them to us. The newly fashioned folders will be catalogued soon and we will digitising more posters once we are done with the Rainbow/Sumac collection. A number of posters are already available in the Digital Library (such as these awesome LGBTQ+ posters we scanned for an exhibition some years ago). This brilliant example of historical intersectionalism will be on display from August 24th to 30th in the Notts Queer History Archive residency at Backlit Gallery.
And talking about NQHA, don’t miss their brilliant BBC Sounds podcast on Le Chic nightclub (and they gave us a plug too!).
Everyone is obviously horrified about the activities of ICE in the US and heartened and inspired by the community resistance to raids and incarcerations. We’d like to draw your attention to the ‘Free Des’ campaign in particular (see assorted social media posts for campaign materials), because it shows how afraid the state is of independent radical print media. Daniel ‘Des’ Sanchez Estrada is one of the 9 ‘Prairieland defendants’, arrested in Texas earlier in the context of a demonstration at the Texas Alvarado ICE facility. Des was not involved, but his wife was arrested and called him from jail. The following day he was pulled over and a box of ‘numerous antifa materials’ found in his van, and he was charged with ‘conspiracy to conceal’. The materials were simply zines which were being read by his wife’s book club, none of which contained ‘terrorist’ materials. Des was sentenced in March to incarceration for 30 years under terrorist legislation. When they try so hard to silence you, you know you are doing something WRITE!
Coming up you can also see us at the Nottingham Green Festival in the Arboretum on Sunday 13th September. We’ll be filling the traditional Ex Libris slot and selling some quality second-hand books on Green, History, Arts and and Social Justice-related themes to raise money for our work. And if you happen to be going to the London Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday 26th September, we’ll be there too!
We are also very happy to promote our longtime friend and collaborator Alan Lodge’s (Tash) exciting exhibition at Bonnington Gallery from Friday 25 September (preview and opening evening on Thursday 24 September).
Finally, some Thank Yous! Thank to everyone who has donated their time, materials and of course money in recent months. Thank you also to L who has donated some amazing history books for us to list or sell to raise funds for our work.
We are completely self-funded, so please donate if you can.
Thank you once again for your support!
Bank name: Unity Trust Bank
Recipient: The Sparrows Nest Library and Archive
Sort code: 60-83-01
Account: 20379287
Don’t forget to consider us if you have radical materials you would like to donate to an archive. Because...