Northern Virginia’s public libraries and the fight to integrate them
The librarian told the Murrays they could not check out any books, explaining that the Purcellville library did not offer that privilege to African American residents such as themselves. She referred them toIt was Emerick’s belief that letting Black people check out books “would not be in the spirit” of the citizens who had founded the library. He offered to check out a book in his name for the Murrays to use.This they declined.
In 1960, after Black teenagers in Danville, Va., protested the town’s Whites-only Confederate Memorial Library, officials introduced a library card application that was four pages long and required two character references and two credit references. Library furniture was removed so people of different races couldn’t sit next to one another.
“Certainly there are parts of the book that don’t make you proud of the library profession,” said LaPierre.County library systems — as opposed to libraries founded by private patrons or local communities — started to come on the scene in Northern Virginia in the 1930s. Segregation was so entrenched then that libraries could boast about being open to “everyone” without mentioning African Americans. Everyone would have known what “everyone” meant: anyone who was White.
In many counties, the only libraries Black people could use were in Black high schools. Those facilities were inferior, with fewer books than White libraries. Many of the books were in poor shape.The book lays out the integration timeline for each county, along with developments in especially racist community libraries in Vienna and Falls Church. It showcases the efforts of Black citizens to stock the libraries and Black activists to address the inequities.
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