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Virginia Lacy Jones, director of Atlanta University’s library school, wrote in 1962, “One phase of American library history that has been neglected is the struggle of the Southern Negro to secure public library service.” Nearly thirty-¤ve years later, library historians can repeat this sentence with similar conviction. The published literature on segregation and civil rights in libraries that does exist is divisible into four categories . The ¤rst is contemporary studies written during the formative period of black librarianship in the South. These were published between 1900 and 1953. The second category is the contemporary literature relating to the issue of integration. Much of this deals with the American Library Association’s own racial angst. This was published after the 1954 Brown decision and before 1972. The third category is the historical analysis of the subject written by library scholars after 1975. These are the rarest. The ¤nal category of published literature is general historical works. In addition to the published works, however, and perhaps the most important informational resources for the historian of library development are the primary materials, including manuscripts , of¤cial records, and oral histories that provide ¤rsthand accounts of events. Contemporary Literature on Segregated Libraries, 1913–1953 William F. Yust, librarian at Louisville and later Rochester, exempli¤es the paternalistic racist of the early twentieth century. In his paper, “What of the Black and Yellow Races?” read before ALA in 1913, Yust asserted that integrated service was detrimental to whites and blacks. Bibliographic Essay Furthermore, it was a violation of southern custom. He contended that most blacks did not require libraries, but where there was service blacks were quick to take advantage of it, and as a result made “commendable progress.” The best solution, according to Yust, was “colored branches” operated by black assistants, but under the supervision and control of white administrators, ALA Bulletin 7: 159–67. Louis Shores queried eighty cities in 1930 to determine the existence and quality of library service to blacks in those places. In Alabama, only Birmingham responded as providing service to blacks. Birmingham Public Library replied that there was a single “Negro branch” with 8,950 volumes for 9,567 readers. Circulation was 69,448 volumes and the branch employed two library assistants. Anniston and Mobile answered as speci¤cally having no facilities for African Americans. Shores asserted that service to blacks should be part of every library program. T o attain this goal the South needed additional Rosenwald funds, more black librarians, and the commitment to solicit black readership, Library Journal 55 (1930): 150–54. Later that year Shores led a “Negro Library Conference” at Fisk University. Highlights of the conference were papers by Clark Foreman of the Rosenwald Fund, ALA Field Agent for the South T ommie Dora Barker, and America’s ¤rst black library director, Thomas F. Blue. It was the ¤rst gathering of its type and indicated a push for black service in the region as a whole. During the Depression years the Julius Rosenwald Fund was the most important impetus to the extension of black library service. Louis Round Wilson and Edward A. Wight appraised the Fund’s County Library Demonstrations in their 1935 County Library Service in the South (Chicago). They placed their study in the context of the southern social and economic conditions that affected library service to the region. The South had a “historical lag” in education brought on by a persisting frontier culture. Efforts to improve education were hindered by the region’s general lack of wealth, which the authors attribute to the pervasiveness of sharecropping and tenancy. Segregation exacerbated the problem. It necessitated a dual system of public services that wasted limited resources. Library development lagged in the South, but for blacks the situation was particularly poor. Over 80 percent of southern blacks lacked service of any kind. The authors called for additional resources , improved facilities, library education, and extension work for African Americans. Interest in black libraries should be “cultivated and stimulated in every way possible,” they asserted. In the end, Wilson and 164 / Bibliographic Essay Wight were critical of the Rosenwald demonstrations, particularly of their planning and administration. They asserted that where blacks were concerned all the counties involved provided inadequate collections and ineffective distribution of books. Still, Wilson and Wight supported the concept of countywide service, and they believed that the Rosenwald efforts marked a recognition that libraries could be an agent for social and educational improvement. Willie Fagan Calkins’s history of the Walker...

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