Notes from the Special-Issue Editor

Abstract

In 2015 I stumbled upon a newsletter that briefly discussed thirty Black and Latino students who were GSLS Carnegie Scholars, at the University of Illinois’s graduate program in the early 1970s. I had never heard of these students, or of this program, and as a Black librarian I was instinctively and ravenously curious about these students who had come before me in a predominately white and female profession. I am not a historian, and this was my first foray into any type of archival or historical work. With the help of esteemed library history scholar Dr. Alistair Black, this social scientist published The GSLS Carnegie Scholars: Guests in Someone Else’s House (2017) in the first volume and issue of the new journal Libraries: Culture, History, and Society (LCHS). This remains one of my favorite articles and research experiences, and it lit the fire that I now have for unearthing and telling the stories of Black librarians.By 2019 I had become the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair at the University of South Carolina (UofSC). My position is named for the legendary Black children’s librarian and storyteller Augusta Baker. In addition to having a trailblazing thirty-seven-year career at the New York Public Library (NYPL) that was full of firsts, Baker was a master storyteller and social justice advocate who staunchly campaigned for positive representations of Black children in literature. She was the children’s librarian of writers Audre Lorde and James Baldwin, she consulted for Sesame Street, and after her retirement from NYPL, she joined the faculty of the UofSC as a Storyteller in Residence, a role she held for fourteen years. Before accepting my position, I had only vaguely heard of her and I certainly never learned about her or other Black librarians during my formal graduate library education. As a Black librarian and library and information science (LIS) educator I know that I stand on the shoulders of Augusta Baker and so many great librarians, but I don’t know enough of their stories, and that should no longer be an accepted norm in LIS education or in LIS history. Library professionals who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPoC) should absolutely know about the legacies we continue, and our aspiring professionals need to know the full and contextual history of the dynamic profession they seek to enter. We are our library ancestors’ wildest dreams and accomplishments, and we owe it to them to pass down their stories, even as we create our own legacies.This special double issue about Black women librarians was borne out of these two experiences, and I hope these articles, and accompanying posts on the LCHS blog, will find their way into graduate classes, conference presentations, and on to social media, so that the innovation, courage, and passion of these librarians will live on and inspire scores of new admirers. In lieu of an exhaustive literature review, allow me to speak about these articles collectively and highlight the extensive, enlightening, and often troubling accounts regarding the history of race in librarianship that appears in our literature. In order to fully understand and appreciate the stories told here, we need to revisit and sit with the historical accounts we already have. The astounding and groundbreaking Black women highlighted in this double issue span from 1883 to the present. When discussing the history of librarianship, and specifically that of Black librarianship, it is important to acknowledge the history of segregation and racism that was applied to communities writ large, and to the library profession and its educational opportunities.The articles in this collection have much in common, including the numerous difficulties Black women librarians had in becoming library professionals, difficulties dealing with the profession, and difficulties serving their communities and having to innovate in order to overcome various barriers and oppressions. A few of the later articles focus on Black women librarians of a subsequent generation who clearly benefited from those who came before them; these Black Women dealt with their own challenges around race during the civil rights movement. And all of these articles also have empathy, strength, ingenuity, patience, and brilliance at their core. The Black women featured in the issue’s ten articles changed the face of librarianship and bettered the communities and societies they served.Dr. LaVerne Gray writes about Naomi Pollard Dobson who was the first Black woman to graduate from Northwestern University in 1905. She became the head librarian at Wilberforce University, an Ohio HBCU (Historically Black College or University). As Dr. Gray points out, Dobson’s story demonstrates how these Black librarians contributed not only to the LIS profession, but to the “intellectual and liberatory conscious of African Americans.”The story of Catherine Latimer is told by librarian Rhonda Evans, who works at the New York Public Library, just as Latimer did beginning in 1920. Latimer was, in fact, the first Black librarian to work at NYPL. During her twenty-six years at the system, she worked closely with many of the great authors and artists of the Harlem Renaissance and she worked with Arturo Schomburg to create what is now one of the most renowned collections dedicated to the Black diaspora.Carla Sarratt introduces readers to Louise Cornelia Ferguson Bolden, who had a historic forty-six-year career in librarianship, after being the first Black student to graduate from Case Western Reserve University Library Science School. As Sarratt tells us, Bolden’s career was significant in part because her work “not only expands the history of the library, but it also tells the history and anthropology of the people in the community.”Dr. Aisha Johnson recounts the life and career of Dr. Virginia Lacy Jones, a world-class advocate for Black librarianship and the education of Black librarians. During her fifty-year career, Jones was among the first African Americans to earn a PhD in LIS and she served as dean of Atlanta University’s School of Library Sciences.Dr. Renate Chancellor, known for her work on legendary Black librarian Dr. E. J. Josey, presents the life and career of Clara Stanton Jones. In 1970 Jones was named the executive director of the Detroit Public Library. She became the first Black woman to become director of a major public library system. An activist against racism and sexism, she went on to serve as the elected president of the American Library Association, 1976–1977.The life and career of another NYPL librarian, Jean Blackwell Hutson, is detailed by Kellee Warren. Hutson, a librarian, curator, and then chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, was shaped by the social movements of the time, including the Harlem Renaissance, and became an important steward of African American cultural heritage materials. Hutson’s career is a case study in the “intersecting oppressions that Black women in leadership or management positions may experience.”Shawna Sherman discusses the career of Effie Lee Morris, a children’s librarian who also worked at NYPL. Morris’s practice focused on increasing accurate cultural representations in children’s literature. Morris’s career also models the importance of self-care and calling out inequities in the profession.Erik Henderson and Dr. Jennifer Burek Pierce detail the career of Esther Walls, a young adult librarian who worked at the New York Public Library and other prominent institutions. Of particular note, Walls’s ALA’s Young Adult Services Division (YASD, now YALSA) committee created African Encounter: A Selected Bibliography of Books, Films, And Other Materials for Promoting an Understanding of Africa Among Young Adults.The career of Barbara Williams Jenkins, the first African American to lead the South Carolina Library Association in 1987 and the ninth president of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, is described by Sheila Stuckey. Jenkins, whose career spanned the civil rights era, served as both head librarian and dean of library and information services at South Carolina State University from 1963 to 1997, where she “helped pave the way for African Americans in librarianship.”And last, but certainly not least, Dr. Sarah Buchannan tells the story of Dr. Mary Lenox. A school librarian and LIS educator, Dr. Lenox became the first Black dean at the University of Missouri in 1984. During her tenure she fought for the School of Library and Information Science and simultaneously contributed scholarship on “libraries in African -American life, youth services, and cooperative collection-building.” As I write this introduction in the fall of 2021, I am grateful for the authors who have told these amazing important stories about many Black women librarians who were previously uncelebrated on a large scale. I am especially grateful to have so many Black women involved in this double issue, telling the stories of the Black women who came before them. In a predominantly white profession, whose history has largely been told by white scholars, this is a significant development and it signals a needed shift in the LIS history landscape. In these articles, and the accompanying blog posts, Black library professionals will be able to see themselves and will hopefully realize that they too have a role in this important genre of LIS storytelling. Please share these stories and be encouraged to find more BIPoC librarians to write about and be inspired by. Yours in empowerment and solidarity,Dr. Nicole A. CookeThe special-issue editor would like to acknowledge and thank the following friends and colleagues. It does indeed take a village to produce a project of this magnitude.To the authors of the articles in this special double issue: Your passion, energy, and flexibility are truly appreciated. Thank you for telling such important stories. Please tell more.To Bernadette A. Lear and Eric C. Novotny: Thank you for welcoming into the LCHS family and for trusting me to help you expand the landscape of LIS history.To Dr. Robin Kurz, project manager extraordinaire: Thank you for shepherding this project to fruition.