The growing "underground library" put together so far by the protesting moms of the Whittier school (photo taken Tuesday; from the Revision Street: America blog)

“A group of single, working Latina moms in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago have decided to occupy a field house on their children’s school grounds slated for demolition, to demand it be turned into a library,” reports Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity in a recent e-newsletter. Moore has been interviewing the occupiers on the Revision Street: America blog in a series of moving posts.

As a story by Rocco Staino in School Library Journal details further,

With shouts of “We want a library!” ringing out in the largely Hispanic neighborhood on the lower west side of Chicago, as many as 30 parents and children have defied local police since September 15, occupying the building and spending their time creating signs and saying the rosary.

The protesters hope the Chicago Public Schools district (CPS) will reverse its decision to raze the building to make way for more greenery and build a soccer field.

… With about 300 mainly Hispanic students, Whittier Elementary only has classroom libraries. Many parents feel these are inadequate for the Title I school, where 40 percent of its students fall below the poverty line.

But a spokesperson for the CPS says that’s never going to happen, citing a structural report the school system commissioned that found “substantial structural and architectural defects” in the building, which dates back to the 1800s.

Nonetheless the school system’s CEO Ron Huberman first agreed to, then backed out of, a meeting with the protestors. Now, the protestors “say they plan to stay put for as long as it takes them to meet face-to-face with school officials,” according to the School Library Journal report. Araceli Gonzalez, who has a 10-year-old daughter in the school, tells the magazine, “Until we have on paper and with a signature from Mr. Huberman telling us that we get the library…we’re going to stay here.”

Meanwhile, a group calling itself the Chicago Underground Library has set up a Facebook page in an attempt to generate donated books, to help the protesters get their library underway without further delay.