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The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism PDF

317 Pages·2018·3.46 MB·English
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THE DESEGREGATION OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH THE DESEGREGATION OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH Civil Rights and Local Activism WAYNE A. WIEGAND | SHIRLEY A. WIEGAND Louisiana State University Press Baton Rouge Published with the assistance of the Michael H. and Ayan Rubin Fund Published by Louisiana State University Press Copyright © 2018 by Louisiana State University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America FIRST PRINTING DESIGNER: Michelle A. Neustrom TYPEFACES: Whitman, text; Meltow San 200 PRINTER AND BINDER: Sheridan Books, Inc. Several paragraphs from chapter 1 first appeared in Wayne A. Wiegand, Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), and are reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. Several paragraphs from chapters 7 and 8 first appeared in Wayne A. Wiegand, “Forgotten Heroes in Civil Rights History,” American Libraries 48 (June 2017): 3–7. Portions of chapter 9 and the epilogue first appeared in Wayne A. Wiegand, “‘Any Ideas?’ The American Library Association and the Desegregation of Public Libraries in the American South,” Libraries: Culture, History, and Society 1, no. 1 (March 2017): 1–22, copyright © 2017 by the American Library Association’s Library History Round Table. This article is used by permission of The Pennsylvania State University Press. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Names: Wiegand, Wayne A., 1946– author. | Wiegand, Shirley A., author. Title: The desegregation of public libraries in the Jim Crow South : civil rights and local activism / Wayne A. Wiegand and Shirley A. Wiegand. Description: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017038119| ISBN 978-0-8071-6867-7 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-0-8071- 6868-4 (pdf) | ISBN 978-0-80716869-1 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: African Americans and libraries—Southern States—History—20th century. | Discrimination in public accommodations—Southern States—History—20th century. | Public libraries—Southern States—History—20th century. | Civil rights movements—Southern States —History—20th century. Classification: LCC Z711.9 .W54 2018 | DDC 027.475—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038119 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. To the black youths who risked their lives to desegregate Jim Crow public libraries in the American South. A sadly belated “Thank you.” CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Introduction 1 Jim Crow Public Libraries before 1954 2 Rumbles of Discontent before 1960 3 Memphis, Tennessee, and Greenville, South Carolina 4 Petersburg and Danville, Virginia 5 Alabama 6 Georgia 7 Mississippi 8 Black Youth in Rural Louisiana 9 The American Library Association Epilogue APPENDIX: Selected List of Public Library Protesters NOTES NOTE ON PRIMARY SOURCES INDEX ILLUSTRATIONS Louisville Public Library Children’s Room, 1928 Sit-in arrest at the Alexandria, Virginia, Library, August 21, 1939 Jesse H. and Allegra W. Turner Petersburg chief of police W. E. Traylor serving warrant on Lillian Pride, March 7, 1960 African Americans assembling at Petersburg Courthouse, March 8, 1960 Miles College student speaking to Birmingham public librarians, April 10, 1963 Sit-in at the Birmingham Public Library, April 10, 1963 Albany Public Library, closed during summer 1962 James “Sammy” Bradford surrounded by police in Jackson Public Library, March 27, 1961 Police escorting “Tougaloo Nine” from Jackson Public Library, March 27, 1961 Mug shots of “Tougaloo Nine,” March 27, 1961 Clara Stanton Jones, first African American president of the American Library Association, addressing the ALA Council, summer 1978 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our thanks to Christine Pawley, who painstakingly went through an earlier draft of this book and gave wise counsel and advice that substantially improved it; Chris Dodge, who compiled the index; the anonymous reader for Louisiana State University Press, who not only carefully screened the manuscript but also prodded us to take a broader perspective; and especially our editor, Rand Dotson, who showed amazing patience with sometimes fussy authors and who certainly made this into a better book. We also thank former students and colleagues with whom we’ve discussed ideas and conclusions that found their way into our narrative; Karen Muller of the American Library Association Library, who screened the American Library Association Executive Board minutes for mention of amicus briefs filed by the association between 1954 and 1965; the American Library Association, for a Diversity Grant that Wayne used in May 2012 for research into newspaper databases at the Library of Congress; Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library for a short-term fellowship in October 2012, and especially Randall Burkett, who made Wayne’s weeklong stay there so profitable; librarians at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and especially Michele Besant of the School of Library and Information Studies; archivists at the Wisconsin Historical Society, where Wayne perused the records of the Louisiana Section of the Congress on Racial Equality, which was so heavily involved in desegregating rural Louisiana public libraries; Marquette University Law School, and especially Dean Joseph Kearney, for supporting this project, and Patricia Cervenka and other law school librarians who helped retrieve research materials at so many stages of this project; Florida A&M University Law School, for supporting this project in so many ways while Shirl was visiting professor there from 2008 through 2011; librarians at Florida State University, and especially the School of Information’s Goldstein Library director, Pamala Doffek, and her staff, many of whom helped this project in so many ways; librarians and archivists at the Library of Congress (where Wayne spent weeks going through newspaper databases—especially the ProQuest African American newspapers—and several days going through the papers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the Manuscripts Reading Room); archivists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (where Wayne consulted the American Library Association Archives); librarians and archivists at the Virginia State Library in Richmond, the University of South Carolina Library in Columbia, the University of Georgia in Athens, the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, the Alabama State Department of Library and Archives in Montgomery, and the Mississippi Department of Library and Archives in Jackson, where Wayne perused microfilmed newspapers from small towns within each state; librarians and archivists at the Civil Rights Museum in Albany, Georgia, where director Lee Formwalt showed Shirl documents relating to the desegregation of the public library and where Wayne and Shirl perused copies of local newspapers; archivists at the National Archives and Records Service in Philadelphia; librarians at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture in Atlanta, who kindly copied and mailed to us a transcript of an oral history interview with Annie McPheeters, longtime director of Atlanta’s black public libraries; and indirectly the National Endowment for the Humanities, for a Fellowship for University Teachers for Wayne in 2008–9 that funded research for a book entitled Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library (2015), which Wayne also used to screen huge newspaper databases at the Library of Congress for valuable information used in The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South. THE DESEGREGATION OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH

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