Name: Freedom Libraries
ISBN: 9781538115534

Mike Selby

This book delves into how Freedom Libraries were at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, and the remarkable courage of the people who used them. As the Civil Rights Movement exploded across the United States, numerous libraries were desegregated on paper only, and there was another virtually unheard of struggle-- the right to read.

The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South

Freedom Libraries

Taylor

This is an extremely important book for library science and civil rights history. I graduated from library school a little over a year ago. We discussed the perception of librarians as white women and the stereotypes that librarianship can hold. In a class on the information professions in society, we spent a week on the need for diversity and multicultural perspectives in the profession. I wrote a final paper on the concept of libraries as 'neutral' or apolitical spaces. At no time during my research, or in my two years in library school, did I ever learn that the Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia Library Associations were expelled from ALA for refusal to desegregate. These stories of segregated libraries, Freedom Libraries, and integration in libraries need to be told. We as a profession need to admit those mistakes and work to ensure that entire populations are not being systematically and violently excluded from basic library resources. 

I received an ARC of this book through Netgalley.

This book delves into how Freedom Libraries were at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, and the remarkable courage of the people who used them. As the Civil Rights Movement exploded across the United States, numerous libraries were desegregated on paper only, and there was another virtually unheard of struggle— the right to read.

Freedom Libraries The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South

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