(upbeat music) - "You Oughta Know" is in Wilmington, Delaware, and we're tracing Bob Marley's Wilmington roots and the legacy he left behind.

Plus, we check out what's on the menu at two downtown locations.

And authors, actors, and activists.

See how Wilmington's public Library is feeding the mic.

Welcome to "You Oughta Know."

I'm Shirley Min.

We are coming to you from the historic Wilmington Public Library.

In addition to being called one of the most beautiful libraries in the country, it's also getting a lot of attention for its efforts to make the library a hub for the community.

(bright music) - In Wilmington, there is a renaissance.

The work of the library is to have this renaissance, but remove stupidity out of it and encourage people to think freely, to think independently, and to know how to synthesize information effectively, and to read.

It's incumbent upon anybody running a public institution to engage the community in a robust and prolific manner.

My name is Jamar Rahming.

I'm the Executive Director of the Wilmington Libraries.

When I came here, I thought that I had bitten off more than what I could chew.

The library was just in a state of crisis.

The problems just seemed colossal.

I accepted the challenge.

The Wilmington Library is one of the oldest libraries in the nation.

We won the National Medal, it's the highest honor that a public library institution can receive.

It's from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

We earned that medal because of our community engagement and the programs that we're offering to our city.

My staff and I, we canvassed the community and as we started talking to the constituents and seeing what their needs were, we discovered that there were a high volume of Wilmingtonians, people in our service area who had never left the city limits of Wilmington.

- And we showed up there at that brown stone... - We needed to bring the world to them.

And so that's when we began to bring as many prolific Black and brown voices here as we possibly can because the city of Wilmington is, it's a majority of urban working class cities.

So we figured that if we start bringing in high profile Black celebrities, that would draw people into the library.

Libraries, we're gatekeepers of information, but what the celebrities do, they bring in some form of inspiration.

So we're offering information with inspiration.

90% of the guests that we have here, they have a book that they've written or published.

So we use the celebrity name to cast a spell on the people.

It's just clickbait to just get them in the doors and hopefully get a book in their hand and hopefully they read it.

We have a national literacy crisis.

The average American is reading at a sixth grade reading level, giving us a newfound challenge because with people engaged in social media, I mean they are enslaved to the digital echo chamber.

I mean they're being educated by social media minds and soundbites and clips and there's no respect for context.

- A couple of weeks ago, Common was in the building.

- We have a newfound role to really cater to the intellectual wellness of our constituency.

We have these speakers come, they get some context, they don't get soundbite like when we invited Dennis Rodman here, we had people that did not want him here because they thought that he was a friend of a North Korean dictator.

And once they sat and talked to Dennis Rodman and they were able to ask him some questions, they found out that Dennis Rodman went to North Korea to actually create world peace.

We bring in New York Times bestselling authors for children and we host schools, hundreds of kids at a time.

We've hosted Jason Reynolds, Kwame Alexander, Vanessa Brantley-Newton.

We've had LeVar Burton here.

And with the epidemic of Black boys not reading by grade level and with Wilmington being a predominantly Black city, our first major initiative in 2019 was Barbershop Books that we launched.

And so we set up pop-up libraries in about 30 barbershops.

(upbeat music) The library is a community space.

We strive to be the social, intellectual, and recreational hub of the community.

So we hope that people will walk away being inspired to avail themselves to what we offer here.

- Now that we've checked out the Wilmington Library, let's head to class at the Freire School in Wilmington, where education focuses on creativity and critical thinking.

(gentle music) - Freire Schools was founded in Philadelphia in 1999 with the mission of providing a college prep education to students in the city of Philadelphia.

We opened here in Wilmington in 2015 with the same mission.

Our founder, Kelly Davenport, worked with a group of student researchers before founding the school and she asked the students, what is it that you want in a school?

And what they came back to her with was they wanted a safe environment and they wanted rigorous academics.

Anna, can you help me solve this please?

- [Anna] Divided by four and you get five over two.

- They really wanted to be challenged with rigorous content.

Many of our students come to us two to three years behind in math and reading, and we really focus on accelerating their growth so that by the time they leave here, they're proficient and ready to take on college and careers.

- What information would you need to determine if a child would inherit a disorder from their parents?

- We really wanna make sure our teachers are sparking curiosity.

- When I plan my lessons, it's always on the forefront of my mind of how can I get students to engage with today's content, the kinds of things they could be thinking about.

But when a student comes up with an idea that really pushes the lesson forward, we run with that.

What kinds of things do you think a genetic counselor might do?

It gives students an opportunity to collaborate more often because their ideas are important.

Each kid's viewpoint is different from the next, and so sometimes, oftentimes they come up with a lot of really deep understanding of content just from what they can generate in the classrooms themselves.

Let's see if we can help each other out.

Alex, how much would you make as a genetic counselor?

We have students that come in and really want to know what's happening, what's next, how does today connect to yesterday and where are we going?

So it's much more exciting.

(bright music) - Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and theorist.

His teachings really inspire and challenge us to center our students in everything that we do to really ensure that they are thinking critically, that they are active participants in their learning rather than just empty vessels waiting to be filled.

- What's special about the classroom is when everyone engages and they interact in activities.

When we're all collaborating and doing teamwork and working with each other and just expressing kindness and gratitude, I feel like that's what's special about the classroom.

- I got really, really great feedback about what you all did.

I'm so proud of the work that you did.

- The thing that I like most about the school is how everybody got their own personalities.

They promote you to be who you are.

- I think my team made more compelling argument because we were able to take what the other team said about our leader and also argue back with our own thoughts and facts.

- Raise your hand if you're not on Jerika's team and you agree.

- I wanna be an agriculture and food scientist.

So currently I work on a farm.

This school really helped us because it gave us to be able to have a voice.

So it puts us out there.

It makes like our voices be heard.

- My plans for after Freire Charter School is to go to Howard University.

I plan to attend in a major of nursing, so this way I can become a registered nurse, a pediatric nurse so I can help kids.

We are the next generation, so I feel as though being a pediatric nurse would make me like help the future.

- From inspiration from Paulo Freire, we want our students to feel empowered to use their voice and be prepared to go out into the world and be change makers in their community.

That's what we need.

We want our students to build a better future.

- Freire Charter School, best school in Wilmington.

(students chatting) - Next, we take you inside Torbert Street Social.

The speakeasy is known for its uniquely crafted cocktails and its overall vibe.

(upbeat music) Willie, I love the way the place looks.

It has such speakeasy vibes.

How would you describe the place?

- I would definitely say it has the speakeasy feel, like that's what we're going for.

- [Shirley] When did Torbert Street Social Open?

- [Willie] We opened in 2019.

(upbeat music) But the building's been here since 1887, so it's been here for a long time.

- [Shirley] And it was originally a horse stable?

- [Willie] Started out as a horse stable.

- What I like about the place though is you didn't manufacture the look of this space.

- Everything is pretty much original from like the beams, the brick walls, of course put in shelves for liquor bottles, but everything else has been here since then.

- What is Torbert Street Social known for?

- We're definitely known for our cocktails.

(upbeat music) We make really awesome old-fashioneds.

We smoke our old-fashioneds.

When we do have people come in and they're like, what's the drink to get, we always say old-fashioned.

- Any other cocktails you're known for?

- Other than our old-fashioned, a lot of people's favorites is our Let That Mango, which is essentially a margarita, but we make the mango cordial ourself in the house, which is I think one thing that sets us apart.

We don't just order it, we make it ourself, put our own spin on it.

So it's not something you can just go buy from the store.

- In addition to cocktails, you also have food.

- There's food here too.

(upbeat music) Recently we redesigned our menu so we can have some more entrees.

So now you can come in with a big group and share everything or you can come in here on a date and then just enjoy a nice dinner.

- [Shirley] Tell me about the patio space.

- [Willie] We got our patio outside, we have our stage that we do our live music on, and then we have our fire pit.

Plenty of seating out there.

- It's cozy out there.

- It's definitely cozy, yes.

It's like your own backyard.

(gentle music) - [Shirley] How have you seen Wilmington change over the years?

- When I was younger, there wasn't a lot in the city.

It was almost like a ghost town, but like over the past five years, now you have a lot more nicer restaurants coming in and then people are building more apartments and things like that.

So you got a more of a diverse crowd coming into the city, which I just think helps expand everybody's knowledge and palates and things like that, which is just helping the city grow.

And that's why I think like one day Wilmington's gonna be that next travel destination spot for the area.

- It's exciting.

- Yes, very exciting.

If you don't want to drive to Philly or take a long drive anywhere else, this is the perfect little hideaway.

- Check out Torbert Street Social's Instagram page.

You'll see some beautiful pictures of what they offer here.

It is definitely worth a trip if you're out of state.

Another must-visit eatery is centrally located in the heart of downtown Wilmington.

DE.CO Food Hall is serving up a smorgasbord for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all while supporting local artisans.

(upbeat music) - DE.CO is the kind of place that everyone can come.

There's something for everyone.

We have eight different stalls that all serve a variety of meals.

We have Bardea Pizzeria, Connie's Chicken and Waffles, the only chicken and waffles in the area, El Chingon Tacqueria, you can get a great birria taco there, like it's a fabulous taco bowl.

The vegan spot is Tamara Earl and she has everything.

- Being in DE.CO is really like a big experience for me.

It's good because some people are still new to the vegan scene, with us being in the food hall, some people would walk by and be a little curious like, hmm, what is this?

I'll try this out today.

- [Deborah] And then we have Stu & Sammy's, that's your traditional sandwiches, but up a notch.

- It's nice to have this much variety in one location.

Our burgers sell like crazy.

Our smoked pastrami Reuben is fantastic.

A lot of love and labor goes into it.

- [Deborah] After that is our baby, it's called Rebel Ramen, and it's a ramen shop that we opened collectively together.

Al Chu's Sushi is the anchor.

It's been here since it opened and it has very good sushi, and Al's just, he's an icon.

And then we round it out with Spark'd.

Spark'd is owned by the Hotel DuPont and it is our coffee shop.

They have homemade pastries every day and they have like a cupcake of the day.

(upbeat music) The bar is mid-century.

It's beautiful.

It's definitely the focal point.

It's the first thing you see when you walk in the door.

We have amazing bartenders, they're really mixologists.

We change our bar menu seasonally, so we're getting ready to roll out the spring menu.

- One that I'm really excited about, it's a cucumber mint mule.

We're gonna go fruit, we're gonna go light, and we're gonna go area, and we're gonna go bubbles.

- I have seen tremendous growth in Wilmington.

I love it.

And I love to see the food growth.

Oh my gosh, the food scene's amazing.

The new apartment buildings are just a hub of activity that bring a fresh, new, vibrant look to the city, and they come and they dine and they make it just a place to be.

- Just coming for lunch here, it's pretty much impossible not to see someone that you know from work that you know from living in the city.

So it definitely feels like a community because you're literally engaging with everyone else in the community at lunch.

So it's really nice.

- We have something almost every night.

Tuesday night we have trivia.

We were just nominated as best place to go to trivia.

DE.CO is big on music.

We have the Thursday night music, we're on the art loop.

And on the art loop we have music also, so that's called First Fridays.

We just try to include everyone and everybody.

If I could describe DE.CO in one word, I would say community.

We want everyone to come here and feel comfortable and have a good time.

And that's why we invite the artists, the musicians, it's just a great place to be together.

- From the eateries to entertainment and contemporary living spaces, downtown Wilmington is all abuzz.

And I sat down with the man at the center of this revitalization, Mayor Mike Purzycki.

It's so good to see you, Mayor Purzycki.

It's been a long time.

- It has.

- You know, we are here in the Grand Opera House, the Baby Grand specifically.

The lineup here has been getting better every year.

Market Street where we are has more bars, more restaurants.

I mean, it's beautiful, and it seems like Wilmington is truly making a name for itself.

Is this the vision of downtown that you had in your mind when you took office in 2016?

- Yeah, that's funny.

I remember when I spent 20 years on the riverfront, people always said, "Well, what's your plan?"

As if you just have this plan and all of a sudden you work to it, and then it ignores the fact that these are organisms, this development, this development that takes place is not something that comes out of somebody's sketchbook.

It's really the organism that just grows because you've got public dollars and private dollars and some nonprofits and everybody working together and one day it all comes together.

What happens in a city like ours is we have thousands of people who are living here who never lived here before, and they become customers to those bars and restaurants, but at the same time, they only come here because you have bars and restaurants.

So nice place, beautiful hotels.

And so there's kind of a push and pull that goes on between the people who wanna live here and work here and the amenities that we provide.

- Yeah, a little bit of a chicken egg argument here.

It seems like the changes have come at warp speed, but maybe they're not.

Maybe the changes were a long time coming and in the process.

- Yeah, that's true.

We all work at it and you feel like you're laboring in the fields for so long and then one day it just changes and everybody says, "Wow, that really has changed."

Well, it was incremental until one day you turned around and it was the whole picture, it was so appealing.

- How do we keep it going?

- I think you keep doing what we're doing.

So people in my position have to be supportive of private investment.

We have to do everything we can to attract private investment.

And we shouldn't be pitting one neighborhood against another, one class against the other.

We all have to realize that when our downtown and riverfront thrive, it gives us money to afford to take care of our neighborhoods that are more challenged and are more needy.

And so we should all be having the attitude that we work together.

And I think people in my position have to provide the leadership so that that message is clear.

- One of the neighborhoods like the east side of Wilmington got a huge investment.

Millions, tens of millions of dollars.

- 20.

- 20 to be specific.

Talk to me about this next phase of revitalizing other parts of the city.

- Yeah, so you know, it's as I said, everybody focuses on the riverfront and downtown, but you cannot be a healthy city if your neighborhoods are just barely getting by.

We have, in addressing the needs of the east side, for example, we are struck by how challenged people are just to get by day to day.

So we have a program, by the way, where we will improve housing for people who have certain income needs and we'll do roofs, doors, windows, and even heating systems because people honestly cannot afford to take care of their homes they've lived in for 40 years.

I think that when you're living with that kind of a challenge every day, it gives rise to other disorders that we don't want.

So we're always talking about solving crime.

Every single city in America is trying to figure out how to solve crime.

And honestly the long game is you have to make neighborhoods healthy.

So our young people grow up in healthy environments and their idea of their value is not going out there and doing mischief.

- And keeping it affordable for all communities.

Okay, well Mayor Purzycki, that that does it for our time.

Thank you so much.

Bob Marley once called Wilmington his home, and the sun is shining on his legacy here.

(upbeat music) - I was born in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico, migrated into the US at six years old in 1960 to Santa Monica, California.

My husband is from Salem, New Jersey, and left New Jersey at 17 and came to Delaware where he was the first person of color to work for the News Journal as a photographer.

Also in the '60s, he opened up the first Afrocentric shop right on the corner of 24th and Market.

(upbeat music) My husband met Bob Marley that first time that he came up from Jamaica, the Ibis shop, which is only a couple of blocks from 24th and Tatnall where Bob and his mother lived.

There's two houses, Bob's house and mom's house.

Instantly they became friends.

I mean, both my husband and Bob are Aquarians.

They're both entrepreneurs.

They both love music, so perfect match.

And they would invite Ibis back over to mom's after work and have dinner.

My husband said, "Oh my God, I never ate such amazing food."

She cooked Jamaican, everything, and after dinner, they would go in the basement and jam all hours of the night.

They hung out, they enjoyed the music, they had a great time.

And when Bob decided it was time to go home, he invited my husband to go with him.

And he said it was the most amazing experience.

Imagine, Bob took him back to all his dread brethren down there in Kingston, at Nine Mile, and the studios.

So he kind of fell in love with that lifestyle of just running free and searching for yourself the way they did.

And when he came home, he said he came home to clothes shop because he wanted to travel.

When he left the area, he moved to Mississippi, then went to Hollywood, and he continued his love for photography there.

And that's where I met him in LA in August of '74.

We got married in March 18th, 1975.

But once I was expecting and our first little girl was born, he told me that he could not raise children in LA.

We had to move back to the country.

And so we ended up in New Jersey.

But the family connection with Bob's mother and the children and all, it never ended.

We were back and forth all the time.

Mom would either be at our house or we'd be at her house.

And we just enjoyed each other's company extremely and became very close.

(upbeat music) - When I was growing up as a child on the farm in South Jersey, I definitely was aware of the significance of Bob Marley as a prophet, a legend.

My dad's biggest smiles, greatest laughter.

I have seven brothers and sisters.

So there was always a lot of energy in our home.

And the soundtrack of our lives being Bob Marley's music.

- My husband, from the time Bob first passed, he would always challenge me and him to think of a way that we could continue to carry the vibration that Bob left us with.

And so every year for the past 30 years, the tribute to Bob that we do, the Peoples Festival Tribute to Bob Marley, is not a party.

It's a real tribute to grow the seed that Bob left us with.

- Want more on Bob Marley?

Check out the 30th Annual Peoples Festival Tribute to him on August 31st in Wilmington.

Or watch the biopic, "One Love."

Well speaking of films, every month, Movies on Tap shows a cult classic at the Penn Cinema Riverfront Theater in Wilmington.

It's a great way for moviegoers to enjoy a cold beer, catch a classic flick, and support a local charity.

(upbeat music) - We started in 2016, we wanted to combine community, breweries, and charities, and watch our favorite movies, cult classic movies.

- Doing movies every month with a local brewery and giving the money to nonprofits.

And it sounded very ambitious at the time, but lo and behold, it all worked out.

And we found a great partner with Penn Cinema.

- It's a pretty simple fundraising concept.

Once a month we invite a brewery to come out to the theater, we collaborate and pick a movie, and the brewery selects a charity.

And then we sell tickets, which gets you two beers, endless amount of popcorn, and water.

And we donate 100% of that ticket.

And we've partnered with over 85 different nonprofits since 2016.

We've raised over $226,000.

Tonight, 100% of ticket sales go to Light Up the Queen Foundation.

"This is Spinal Tap."

It's tied in with their Big Shine a Light fundraiser concert.

So they wanted a movie from 1984, music centric, perfect fit for that.

♪ (indistinct) play for the UK, you must be the USA ♪ We featured just about every brewery in Delaware.

We've partnered with breweries in PA in New Jersey.

When we can't get a local brewery, we'll partner with a distributor.

And that's how we landed on Allagash tonight.

- For me, it's a good way to get beers out there, especially new ones.

I know Delaware being a small state, small community, things like this go a long way and they're very impactful.

So I'm all about good causes, and if we can do something to make somebody's life a little better, let's do it.

- It's a great night because you're supporting a local charity.

- And getting to see your friends-- - You get popcorn, beer, and a movie.

- [Speaker] Beer and popcorn.

- Penn Cinema's happy to be a community partner with Movies on tap, every month, families, couples, sometimes they dress up in cosplay.

- [Ryan] Depending on the movie, you'll see costumes.

- They did the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and I was a bunny and he was-- - [Don] I was Tim the Enchanter.

- We had a guy, full King Arthur outfit.

And behind him he had someone doing the gallop thing with the coconuts and it was incredible.

- [Ryan] Every year we have the season finale in December with "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."

Everybody dresses up as the characters.

- [Joan] I dressed up like a big squirrel.

And he was Clark.

- There's a nostalgic factor, but there's also this idea of going someplace and being with people and laughing.

- People are coming back out to the theater.

They want to have fun.

They want to escape from the daily realities that are outside of the theater and daily life and enjoy a movie supporting a good cause, tasting great beer.

- Beer's good and I always bring my Milk Duds.

So makes it for a perfect date night actually.

Date night with a cause.

- March 28th is the next Movies on Tap, the feature, "Airplane."

Surely I'm serious.

And yes, you can call me Shirley.

My "Airplane" fans will get that.

Well for tickets, go to their Facebook page, search under Movies on Tap.

All right, that'll do it for us here in Wilmington, Delaware.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Have a good night.

(upbeat music)