“It is simply out of the question to eliminate the colorline”: The Development of Black Library Service in Atlanta and the Integration of the Atlanta Public Library

Abstract

ABSTRACT The first southern recipient of a library construction grant from Andrew Carnegie, the Atlanta Public Library (APL) from the beginning of its development and throughout the twentieth century struggled with questions of race. As it conformed to southern racial norms of the early twentieth century, the APL institutionalized segregation. After integration, the APL long dealt with the effects of having practiced segregation. The history of the development of public library service in Atlanta, the APL's struggle with race, and its efforts to come to terms with its segregated past, suggests that the APL shared a similar pattern of response to questions of race with other southern, particularly urban, public libraries.