Cities Having Colored Libraries
Charlotte, N. C., is the first and only city to build a library for negroes with its own funds. After erecting a $25,000 Carnegie building it spent $5,000 on a site and a separate building for negroes which was opened in 1906. But its only income for maintenance is $400 a year from the city. Most of the books have been donated. In 1911 the librarian of the white library enlisted the interest of a Pittsburgh woman who collected about 600 volumes for it in the North. The librarian at Wilkes-Barré, Pa., sends it the best of her discarded books. From these facts one may infer what kind of standard is maintained.
The white library was incorporated by the legislature in a special act, which at the same time created a separate negro board. Several ineffectual efforts have been made to have the act changed to place the colored library under control of the white board and the supervision of the white librarian. This would undoubtedly result in greater efficiency, as now everybody including the colored board seems to be inactive and indifferent toward it. Its failure however can hardly be ascribed to the negro board alone because it is manifestly impossible with such resources under such conditions to conduct a library which would command the respect and the interest of either race.
Savannah, Ga., also has a small library for negroes. It was organized in 1907 and is housed in rented quarters, but very few persons seem to know of its existence. The city appropriates $360 a year for it. In 1911 it had 2,611 volumes and 1,244 were drawn for home use. Its total receipts were $375.77. At the end of the year $35 was due the librarian for salary and there was a deficit of $33.93. In 1910 Mr. Carnegie offered $12,000 for a colored branch building and the city has promised an increased appropriation on the completion of the building. For a time the negroes tried to raise the money for a site by subscription, but so far they have not succeeded.
Jacksonville, Fla., has in its Carnegie building a separate room and books in charge of a colored attendant. Of its 81,000 population half are colored, but the negro registration is only five per cent and the circulation six per cent of the whole. No effort is being made to extend it. The opinion prevails that the arrangement is a mistake and that a branch library in the negro quarter would bring out a much larger use.
Galveston, Texas, has had a branch of the Rosenberg library in the colored high school since 1904. It contains 2,745 volumes. With a colored population less than one-fifth as large as Jacksonville it has twice as many borrowers but circulates only one-fourth as many books, 2,433 last year. This seems a very small number and does not bear out the theory that a separate branch enlarges its use.
In Memphis, Tenn., the Cossitt library in 1903 entered into an agreement with the LeMoyne Institute, a colored normal school, which furnishes the room, and the Cossitt library furnishes the librarian and the books, which number about four thousand added to a like number belonging to the school. While these are used mainly by pupils and teachers of the school, it serves as the book supply for all interested negroes in the city and surrounding district.
The facilities thus furnished seem to meet the present demands pretty fully. Much depends on the librarian's attitude, which is helpful and encouraging. The circulation last year was 13,947 vols. The institute is erecting a new school building, which will provide better library accommodations.
Louisville, Ky., was the first to establish a full-fledged branch on a broad basis and to erect a separate branch library building for negroes. The original plan for ten Carnegie branch libraries, of which seven have been built, included two for negroes. The first of these was opened in rented quarters the same year as the main library in 1905. Three years later it was moved into the new $30,000 building.
In its administration the colored branch is a part of the general library system and is under the supervision of the main library. The branch librarian, who is a graduate of Hampton Institute, and the two assistants are colored.
The branch serves as the reference library for the colored high schools and other educational institutions. It is in close co-operation with the grade schools through the collections of books which it sends to the classrooms to be drawn by the pupils for home use.
It has an assembly room which is used for lectures, entertainments and numerous other public meetings, and two classrooms for smaller gatherings. There is a story hour for children and several reading and debating clubs for boys and girls and adults. Through its various activities the library not only circulates books and furnishes facts but it is an educational and social center from which radiate many influences for general betterment.
Fine work is being done with children, who draw 68 per cent of the books circulated. An interesting account of it is given in the Library Journal for April, 1910, 25:160-61, by Mrs. Rachel D. Harris, a former teacher in the colored schools, who is in charge of this department.
When the branch was started eight years ago it was somewhat of an experiment and there was doubt and apprehensiveness all around with regard to the outcome of the undertaking. But it has been a pronounced success from the beginning. It has grown steadily until last year 73,462 vols. were drawn from it for home use. It has become so popular that the second branch is now under construction in the eastern colored section of the city.
The colored people are proud of this library and its achievements. Its opening marked an epoch in the development of the race which is second in importance only to the opening of the first colored free schools there in 1870.
Houston, Texas, also has a separate branch building opened last April. For the past four years it was maintained in a small way in the colored high school. The new building is distinctively a product of negro enterprise. Booker T. Washington's secretary called on Andrew Carnegie personally and secured the promise of $15,000 on condition that the city of Houston would agree to provide not less than $1,500 annually for its maintenance. The $1,500 for the site was raised by colored citizens entirely among their own people. The plans for the building were drawn by a colored architect and its erection supervised by a committee of a separate board of trustees, which consisted of nine colored men. The librarian is a colored girl who is responsible only to the colored trustees. Although she and the trustees consult freely with the librarian and trustees of the public library, the latter act only in an advisory capacity to them. They are therefore justly proud of the library as their own achievement. It contains 5,000 volumes. From a colored population of 30,000 the registered borrowers were only 1,261 last year and the books drawn 5,117. These numbers seem very small, but no doubt there will be a large increase in the new building.
While the Houston method of management may contribute to the negro's self-respect and minister somewhat to the pride and independence of a few of their number, the wisdom of the plan may well be questioned. The results are bound to be inferior unless experience counts for nothing. It is unfortunate that so many cities in their first venture proceed with such disregard of the experience of other places. But the limit is reached when the same city repeats the process with a second board after one board has learned its lesson. This applies not only to the details of planning, erecting and furnishing a building but equally if not more to its operation, the selection, purchase and cataloging of books, the appointment of assistants and the transacting of its daily business.
The white public library boards of Nashville and New Orleans both have plans under way for the erection of Carnegie colored branch buildings, each to cost $25,000. In Nashville the negroes are raising $1,000 and the city is paying $5,000 toward the site. In New Orleans the city will purchase the site. In neither of these places is there any public provision at present for supplying books to negroes.
In Atlanta, Ga., the leading educational center of the South for negroes, they are still without public library facilities, although agitation on the subject began over ten years ago. On the day of the opening of the beautiful $125,000 Carnegie building a committee of colored men called on the library board. Prof. W. E. B. DuBois of Atlanta University acting as spokesman said:
"Gentlemen, we are a committee come to ask you to do justice to the black people of Atlanta by giving them the same free library privileges that you propose giving to whites. Every argument which can be adduced to show the need of libraries for whites applies with redoubled force to the negroes. More than any other part of our population they need instruction, inspiration and proper diversion; they need to be lured from temptation of the streets and saved from evil influences, and they need a growing acquaintance with what the best of the world's souls have thought and done and said. It seems hardly necessary in the twentieth century to argue before men like you the necessity and propriety of placing the best means of human uplifting into the hands of the poorest and lowest and blackest.
"The spirit of this great gift to the city has not the spirit of caste or exclusion but rather the catholic spirit which recognizes no artificial differences of rank or birth or race, but seeks to give all men equal opportunity to make the most of themselves. It is our sincere hope that this city will prove itself broad enough and just enough to administer this trust in the true spirit in which it was given."
The chairman asked, "Do you not think that allowing whites and negroes to use this library would be fatal to its usefulness?" Another member of the committee replied that they did not ask to use this library nor even ask equal privileges but only some privileges somewhere.
The chairman then made these points clear: (1) That negroes would not be permitted to use the Carnegie Library in Atlanta; (2) That some library facilities would be provided for them in the future; (3) That the city council would be asked to appropriate a sum proportionate to the amount of taxes paid by negroes of the city; (4) That efforts would be made to induce northern philanthropists to aid such a library.
Later Mr. Carnegie offered to give the money necessary for the erection of a branch library for negroes. When the details of its administration came up for consideration the negroes demanded representation on the library board. This was positively refused and the proceedings were so completely blocked that the negroes of Atlanta are still without any public library advantages.