Making books available: the role of early libraries, librarians, and booksellers in the promotion of African American children's literature

African American Review, Spring, 1998 by Nancy Tolson

Attitudes are measurable by scales designed to indicate the degree of their prejudice in favor of or against an object, such as a race or a country. The use of such a device makes it possible for an investigator to measure attitudes toward certain objects before and after the reading of material dealing with those objects and, under properly controlled conditions, to detect the influence of this reading upon them.

Much of the hostility toward the Negro is a result of the failure of the southern white to perceive that the Negro is essentially a creature like himself. The conditions of southern culture give him few opportunities of seeing the Negro in roles other than those conforming to his stereotype of the Negro as a servant. (47)

Jackson, along with many other librarians throughout the United States, appealed to other librarians to open their libraries' doors to African Americans and allow them complete access to all services. Eliza Atkins Gleason, for example, remarked in a 1945 essay that "it is especially fitting at this time ... that American public librar[ies] in certain sections of the country be up for review. The specific sections under discussion in this paper are those where no service, or only segregated service, is afforded that segment of the population known as the 'Negro minority'" (339). Many public libraries had recently opened their doors to African Americans, either through segregated library facilities or through separate rooms in majority libraries designated for African Americans only. According to the 1940 Census, the South provided very few African Americans with library services. More than 6 million African Americans were Without public library services, 2 million of whom lived in areas where public library facilities were provided for whites (Gleason 341).

Some areas that were heavily populated by African Americans were given separate branches, which were referred to as "colored branches." Some large Northern cities such as New York, Chicago, and Cleveland had "branches located in neighborhoods predominantly populated by Negroes, but these branches [we]re not specifically designated as 'colored' and all other libraries [we]re open on an equal basis" (Shores 313). But even with the growth of libraries throughout the United States, the quantity of books available for and about African Americans in most libraries remained very small, and the number of books suitable for African American children which displayed positive African American images was even smaller.

There was much civil unrest in the 1940s; the smallest conflict between African Americans and whites could cause a riot. And more than 70 percent of the nearly 13 million African Americans in the United States lived in the rural South (Bergman 486). Libraries tried to reduce the racial tension. Lucretia C. Matthews contended in 1945 that "in this period of increased racial tension the public library must seize every opportunity through its services to promote sympathy and understanding. By its very nature as a democratic institution the library should be ready and willing to assume a part of the immense task of reducing the prejudice and bitterness which exist between Negro and white" (145).