"Knowledge is power," read a sign over the doorway between two small rooms of the Louisville Free Public Library's Western Colored Branch, which opened in 1905. It was a sentiment somewhat at odds with the majority of conservative-thinking, turn-of-the-century librarians, who tended to see themselves as cultural arbiters providing order and uplift to their communities by encouraging the masses to read good books. The modern public library movement, which began in 1876 with the founding of the American Library Association (ALA) and the launching of the American Library Journal, coincided with the oppressive "nadir" period for African Americans, an era beginning with the end of Reconstruction and continuing for at least a quarter-century. African American participants in the modern library movement agreed with white library leaders that their institutions could and should provide uplift. But during the nadir, uplifting the race was not a conservative stance. At a time when southern states allowed such practices as lynching and maintained segregated public accommodations to foster the idea that blacks occupied a particular and inferior place in society, libraries offered African Americans an alternative space. There, they could read and magazines by black as well as white authors, study and write, learn about the world beyond their community, and assemble for debates, oral storytelling, and club meetings. Separate public library branches for blacks in the South served dual and paradoxical purposes, reminding African American library users of their distinct status while at the same time recognizing their rights to intellectual pursuits and, as the sign said, to power derived from knowledge.
BT - Register of the Kentucky Historical Society IS - 2 LA - English N2 -"Knowledge is power," read a sign over the doorway between two small rooms of the Louisville Free Public Library's Western Colored Branch, which opened in 1905. It was a sentiment somewhat at odds with the majority of conservative-thinking, turn-of-the-century librarians, who tended to see themselves as cultural arbiters providing order and uplift to their communities by encouraging the masses to read good books. The modern public library movement, which began in 1876 with the founding of the American Library Association (ALA) and the launching of the American Library Journal, coincided with the oppressive "nadir" period for African Americans, an era beginning with the end of Reconstruction and continuing for at least a quarter-century. African American participants in the modern library movement agreed with white library leaders that their institutions could and should provide uplift. But during the nadir, uplifting the race was not a conservative stance. At a time when southern states allowed such practices as lynching and maintained segregated public accommodations to foster the idea that blacks occupied a particular and inferior place in society, libraries offered African Americans an alternative space. There, they could read and magazines by black as well as white authors, study and write, learn about the world beyond their community, and assemble for debates, oral storytelling, and club meetings. Separate public library branches for blacks in the South served dual and paradoxical purposes, reminding African American library users of their distinct status while at the same time recognizing their rights to intellectual pursuits and, as the sign said, to power derived from knowledge.
PY - 1995 SP - 159 EP - 79 T2 - Register of the Kentucky Historical Society TI - Louisville Free Public Library's Racially Segregated Branches, 1905-35 VL - 93 ER -