A Right to Read: Segregation and Civil Rights in Alabama's Public Libraries, 1900–1965

by Patterson Toby Graham

This original and significant contribution to the historiography of the civil rights movement and education in the South details a dramatic and disturbing chapter in American cultural history.

The tradition of American public libraries is closely tied to the perception that these institutions are open to all without regard to social background. Such was not the case in the segregated South, however, where public libraries barred entry to millions of African Americans and provided tacit support for a culture of white supremacy. A Right to Read is the first book to examine public library segregation from its origins in the late 19th century through its end during the tumultuous years of the 1960s civil rights movement. Graham focuses on Alabama, where African Americans, denied access to white libraries, worked to establish and maintain their own "Negro branches." These libraries-separate but never equal-were always underfunded and inadequately prepared to meet the needs of their constituencies.


By 1960, however, African Americans turned their attention toward desegregating the white public libraries their taxes helped support. They carried out "read-ins" and other protests designed to bring attention and judicial pressure upon the segregationists. Patterson Toby Graham contends that, for librarians, the civil rights movement in their institutions represented a conflict of values that pitted their professional ethics against regional mores. He details how several librarians in Alabama took the dangerous course of opposing segregationists, sometimes with unsettling results.


This groundbreaking work built on primary evidence will have wide cross-disciplinary appeal. Students and scholars of southern and African-American history, civil rights, and social science, as well as academic and public librarians, will appreciate Graham's solid research and astute analysis.
Patterson Toby Graham is Head of Special Collections at the University
of Southern Mississippi. His research on library segregation has won four
awards, including the ALISE-Eugene Garfield Dissertation Award.

Genres: Politics

197 pages, Hardcover

First published April 11, 2002

Reviews

[Salamah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for my research paper. A very good account of the history and easy to read.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graham is a UA graduate!

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alabama public libraries were early stages for Civil Rights projects, given their high public profile and higher deals: libraries were created for the common good, for the benefit of society, meant to serve everyone. How could they bar someone from literature or information on the basis of skin color? Patterson Toby Graham here offers a history of how libraries and librarians attempt to serve all patrons, or failed to do so, throughout the 20th century. Choosing 1900 as his starting point isn’t just because it’s convenient: most Alabama public libraries didn’t get their start until the turn of the century, with some exceptions like Huntsville, the library of which predates the state. (There were, of course, private subscription libraries, many of which operated from bookstores judging by what I’ve seen in newspaper ads.) As these libraries began during Jim Crow, some libraries offered ‘negro branches’ like that of Booker T. Washington in the Birmingham system. Other libraries, especially the small-town ones that came to life only with outside funding were limited to white patrons. These librarians did find ways of serving their communities’ black patrons: the Anniston library had certain windows wherein it was closed to whites, but open to blacks, and in the Selma library black patrons were discreetly served through the back door. The Selma library, as is noted in this book, also integrated itself in 1962, thanks to the leadership of director Patricia Blalock — who used sit-ins in other cities to convince the library board that integrating early would avoid any embarrassing scenes that would shame the library or Selma itself.) Several other Alabama cities integrated themselves in this quiet way before becoming the targets of protests, but others were involved. Anniston unfortunately became the scene of mob violence when two black preachers were accosted by “rednecks who would be more comfortable in prison than in a library” and beaten: a smaller black group then attacked the first white man they saw, a random passerby. Graham notes that most Alabama librarians in the 1960s were neither antagonists nor strident supporters of the Civil Rights movement: there were many well-meaning librarians who wanted to do more, but given the precariousness of library funding, no one was over-eager to go to the mattresses over contemporary politics. The stiffest resistance they offered was defending access to information, as when books were challenged for promoting racial integration. This is a little volume, but an enjoyable read and it allowed me to understand the context of Selma’s integration better.