Carla Hayden walked on stage at ALA Annual in Philadelphia to an extended standing ovation from an overflowing crowd. Dwarfed physically by Newbery winner Kwame Alexander, the former Librarian of Congress was immediately the towering presence in the room full of admirers despite admitting to some butterflies backstage.

“I was nervous, because I haven’t been out much,” she said with a little laugh. “But everybody said if you’re going to do something, do it with your community.”

Alexander’s first question: How are you doing?

“Now, I’m feeling good, because this is the community—from authors, publishers, librarians, and everyone connected to this community—that cares about people having access, especially young people, to things that can help and inspire them.”

Throughout the hour-long conversation, Hayden betrayed no anger or bitterness. She took the high road with a wry humor that left no doubt of how she felt about the indignity of being fired in a two-sentence email from a stranger in the Trump administration in May, but also made it clear they did not get the best of her.

Alexander said he was told “by a few folks” that there were certain topics he shouldn’t discuss during the conversation, but in a call on Friday with Hayden, she told him he could ask anything.

“So let’s get into it,” Alexander said, “Can you walk us through what happened?”

Hayden talked about getting the email while with her mother and sending it to staff to try to confirm its legitimacy.

“My mom is here, and let’s just say there were some choice words that passed her lips as we were trying to digest,” Hayden said.

She admitted it was difficult to process what was happening at first.

“I’d never been fired before,” Hayden said in a mock whisper. “Usually there’s a process.”

She is doing better now, she said.

“It’s better because of the opportunity to see the library community coalesce,” she said. “There’s so much more that we can do together. I’m looking at opportunities to be a part of that.”

Hayden called herself “fortunate” because the email came on a Thursday night, and she was able to go to the Library of Congress the next day and see the staff. She wanted to see everyone, noting the cafeteria and facilities workers among others, and stress to the LOC staff that the most important thing was for them to separate her position from the institution. She wanted to make sure that staff protected and continued the mission of the institution despite what they may be feeling about what had happened to her.

“It was quite a day,” she said.

Alexander noted with admiration that when discussing this “very terrible thing that happened not only to the public but to you as a human being,” Hayden spoke about the others who worked at the Library of Congress.

“That’s every job, right?” she said. “You know about their families, you know about what they’re going through, so that’s what you miss the most—the people that you work with.”

Alexander said he asked authors and former National Ambassadors for Young People’s Literature Jacqueline Woodson and Meg Medina, as well as school and public librarians, what their reaction was when they heard the news.

He read their words: Angry, devastated, stunned stillness, empty sadness.

“What did I think about it? For me, it was crap,” Alexander read and, without missing a beat, Hayden responded, “Was that my mom?” breaking the quieted crowd into laughter.

Then Alexander continued with one final response: “When Dr. Hayden was let go, it broke my heart. Like most folks, I cried. It was the thing that sent me over the edge. She is a rock, a heroine, a leader.”

Alexander finished and let the room sit with the words before Hayden once again broke the silence.

“It’s going to be alright,” she said. “Look, we’re here. We’re here. And we’re comforting each other. And the librarians and the library staff that are in areas that are even more challenged are getting help and reassurance, and there’s a lot of organizing going on.”

It happened repeatedly. When the air in the room became heavy with the weight of what had happened to Hayden, what was happening to libraries and in the world, she joked, she provided solace, guidance, leadership. When asked how she can be “optimistic without being naïve” and not allow these things to define her, Hayden replied without hesitation, “Knowing that things have been worse.”

She talked about her family history and the history of the country.

“There were other times, there were so many other challenges, and they made it,” she said. “They still cooked and ate and went to church and all those things.”

She mentioned t the Underground Railroad then tied it all back to the mission and purpose of the attendees, quoting Frederick Douglas: “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

During the discussion, Hayden talked about her job interview with President Obama. At the time, she didn’t know if she wanted to be Librarian of Congress or if her experience in public libraries gave her the needed expertise for this responsibility she considered so different.

Obama told her about all of the amazing things he had seen that are housed in the Library of Congress, things that he had access to because he was president. Then he asked, “What could you do to open up this treasure chest? To make everyone know what the Library of Congress has and have access in a way that would help them?”

Provide access? That she could do.

“I can open it up,” she recalled thinking. And she became the 14 ^th Librarian of Congress and first woman and first African American to lead the national library. And in her nine years of service, she did open it up to the people.

Asked if she’d take the job back if offered, Hayden pivoted—the only time she didn’t answer a question. Instead, she suggested Congress take authority over the position instead of having it under executive control.

Alexander mentioned a rally he attended with Medina, Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi, and others in support of Hayden and the freedom to read. He said they have decided they need to “be bold,” but admitted they haven’t quite figured out what that means.

“What can we do? How can we resist? How can we fight back? Can you give us some practical guidance?” he asked.

“The first thing is to keep doing what you're doing,” she said. “You're not being duplicitous or sneaky to be creative about presenting materials or doing things in a different way. Join with others, get out of your own bubble in terms of the literary community. There is strength in numbers, and sometimes another group can take your message in a way that you can’t and that's very helpful, too.”

She stressed supporting each other, seeking allies like the Friends of the Library groups and board of trustees, and leaning on them when needed, pushing out the library message at school board meetings and local budget hearings and everywhere anyone will listen.

“Having a consistent presence means a lot,” she said.

“Sometimes they say, ‘Stay in your lane,’” said Hayden. “But we can do a lot in our lane. We can do a heck of a lot.”

Everybody can’t do everything, she noted, “But what you can do, do it, and do it well.”