Skip to content Skip to footer

Bill Moyers | How Citizen Power Can Save a Library

Bill addresses a public library funding crisis, calling attention to a controversial community effort in Michigan to save its own library.

Part of the Series

Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

In this web-exclusive Bill Moyers Essay, Bill professes his lifelong love for libraries and their strong cultural value, and points to a crisis in public library funding across the country. But he also shares a unique and controversial community effort in Troy, Michigan that kept its library from becoming a political casualty, and serves as “a reminder of what can happen when we act together.”

Watch the full video below that explains how the Tea Party put the library in jeopardy. and how the town — with the help ad agency Leo Burnett — successfully fought back.

Media that fights fascism

Truthout is funded almost entirely by readers — that’s why we can speak truth to power and cut against the mainstream narrative. But independent journalists at Truthout face mounting political repression under Trump.

We rely on your support to survive McCarthyist censorship. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation.