African-Americans and Public Libraries

The purpose of this report is to examine, from a historical perspective, the African-American's ability to receive service from public libraries. To that end, the paper will examine library service to African-Americans from the period of slavery through the Civil War, Reconstruction, World War I and World War II, and through to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its effect on the public library. A brief discussion of the role played by the American Library Association (ALA) and the effect of multiculturalism will also be provided.

The rationale for selecting this particular subject is based upon the recognition that the public library functions in a democratic society as a source of information and knowledge and simultaneously has been used at times as an instrument of social control that promotes the values of the dominant culture. Despite the rhetoric of open access and intellectual freedom that developed over the course of the twentieth century, for most of that time period, library collections and policies reflected the knowledge, beliefs, values, and policies of the largely Caucasian/Anglo mainstream public.

This public not only supplied most of the policymakers who shaped library collections and use patterns, but also included the vast majority of librarians who dominated the profession. As American society has moved toward integration and multiculturalism, constructing an analysis of the treatment of

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also was the first city in the United States to open a library training program for African-Americans. Only Covington, Kentucky allowed both Blacks and Whites to jointly use its library facilities in 1901. Houston was another site favored by Andrew Carnegie for his massive library building program. Houston's Colored Carnegie Library was established in 1907 as a public library branch specifically for African-American use. Initially, this library functioned in a temporary space with a short-term commitment of funds. Booker T. Washington, along with Carnegie, was instrumental in ensuring that this African-American library would receive the funds it needed to meet the needs of over 2,000 registered readers in the first decade of the twentieth century. During the period from World War I through the Great Depression and World War II, more and more local public library boards exhibited a willingness to open libraries targeting African-Americans. However, the vast majority of these libraries were segregated. A number of libraries for this population were funded under such initiatives as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and supported at least in part by the ALA which opened its membership to African-American librarian

Category: History - A