The Howard Branch of the Chattanooga Public Library was established in 1913 to serve the African American citizens of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Rev. Thomas Fountain Blue of the Colored Branches of the Louisville Free Public Library gave an address at the branch's opening ceremony held on October 11, 1913. The Howard Branch was later renamed the South Chattanooga Branch. Kate Brown and Ola Boatner served as librarians at the branch. The Chattanooga Public Library integrated its library facilities in 1954.
See related posts: The Negro Branch of the Carnegie Library of Nashville (Nashville, Tennessee) ; The Colored School Department of the Cossitt Library (Memphis, Tennessee); and The Free Colored Carnegie Branch of the Lawson McGhee Library (Knoxville, Tennessee).
Sources: Miller, Ernest I. "Library Service for Negroes in Tennessee." Journal of Negro Education 10.4 (1941): 636-637. Print. ; Hudson, Earline H. "Library Service to Blacks and Black Librarians in Tennessee." The Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences, Activities, Challenges. Ed. Annette L . Phinazee. Durham: NCCU School of Library Science, 1980. 104-107, 110-111. Print.
Annette Hoage Phinazee (1920-1983), a 1939 graduate of Fisk University, was the first African American to earn a PhD in library science from Columbia University (she received her degree in 1961). In addition, she was a professor and instructor at the Atlanta University Library School in Atlanta, Georgia (1946-1957, 1963-1969) [note: Atlanta University is now Clark-Atlanta University]; once served as dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Library Science (1970-1983); and was the first African American president of the North Carolina Library Association.
A native of Orangeburg, South Carolina, Ms. Phinazee was born Alethia Annette Lewis in 1920 and was the daughter of William C. and Alethia Lewis. She was the widow of George L. Hoage. She later married Joseph Phinazee (1916-1991), a native of Georgia, World War II veteran, and former employee of the Biology Department of North Carolina Central University.
After graduating from Fisk University, Ms. Phinazee earned a Bachelor of Library Science (BLS) in 1941 and a Master of Library Science (MLS) in 1948 from the University of Illinois. She was a librarian at Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama (1941-1942); Lincoln University of Jefferson City, Missouri (1942-1944); and Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois (1957-1962). In addition, Ms. Phinazee was the editor of The Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences, Activities, Challenges which was published in 1980. Annette Lewis Hoage Phinazee passed away in 1983 in Durham, North Carolina.
Update 04/13/2013:
See related posts: North Carolina Negro Library Association ; Constance Hill Marteena: Hampton Institute Library School Graduate and President of the North Carolina Negro Library Association ; and George Moses Horton Branch of the Forsyth County Public Library (Winston-Salem, North Carolina).
Sources: Dawson, Alma. "Celebrating African American Librarians and Librarianship." Library Trends 49.1 (2000): 60. Print. ; "Yerby Shows the Way." Jet 45.16 (1974): 4. Print. ; Speller, Benjamin F. "Alethia Annette Lewis Hoage Phinazee (1920-1983)." Dictionary of American Library Biography. Ed. Donald G. Davis. Vol. 3. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. 173-174. Print. ; The Black Librarian in the Southeast: Reminiscences, Activities, Challenges. Ed. Annette L. Phinazee. Durham: NCCU School of Library Science, 1980. Print. ; McAllister-Harper, D., Virginia Purefoy Jones, and Mary Beth Schell. "Annette Lewis Phinazee: Visionary, Cataloger, Educator." Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 25.2 (1998): 227-241. Print. ; "Annette Lewis Phinazee." North Carolina, Deaths, 1931-1994. FamilySearch.org, n.d.Web. 13 Apr. 2013. ; "Joseph Phinazee." North Carolina, Deaths, 1931-1994. FamilySearch.org, n.d.Web. 13 Apr. 2013. ; "Joseph Phinazee." United States Social Security Death Index. FamilySearch.org, n.d.Web. 13 Apr. 2013. ; "Joseph Phinazee." United States, World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946. FamilySearch.org, n.d.Web. 13 Apr. 2013. ; Phinazee, Annette Hoage and Casper L. Jordan. "Centralized Library Purchases and Technical Processing for Six Colleges in Alabama and Mississippi: A Report." College and Research Libraries 30.4 (1969): 369-370. Print.
Minne B. Slade Bishop, a 1939 graduate of the Hampton Institute Library School, was a librarian at Arkansas State College (now Arkansas State University) from 1940-1943. Previously, Ms. Bishop worked in Evansville, Indiana as the manager of the Cherry Street Branch of the Evansville Public Library from 1939-1940. In 1943, she was hired as a librarian at Bishop State Community College (formerly Alabama State College-Mobile), in Mobile, Alabama. Ms. Bishop was the wife of Dr. Sanford Bishop, the first president of Bishop State Community College, and the mother of Rep. Sanford Bishop, Jr. of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Minnie Slade Bishop Library of the Bishop State Community College is named for her. Ms. Bishop passed away in 2004.
See related post: Article on Evansville, Indiana's Former African American Library Branch.
Sources: "News Notes." Library Occurrent 13.3 (1939): 87. Print. ; "News Notes from Indiana Libraries." Library Occurrent 13.9 (1941): 281. Print. ; "Sanford D. Bishop, Jr." Bishop.house.gov. U.S. House of Representatives, n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2010. ; "History." Bishop State Community College. Bishop State Community College, n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2010. ; Campbell, Lucy B. "Hampton Institute Library School." Handbook of Black Librarianship. Ed. E.J. Josey and Marva L. DeLoach. 2nd ed. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2000. 46. Print. ; "Library Boosters Named for Cherry Street Branch." The Evansville Argus 15 Mar. 1940: 1. Print. ; "Lincoln Elementary News." The Evansville Argus 17 Nov. 1939: 6. Print. ; "News Flashes: Carolina Visitor." The Evansville Argus 14 Oct. 1939: 1. Print. ; "Derbyville: All I Hear Now..." The Evansville Argus 13 Sept. 1940: 4. Print. ; Hite, Edith E. "News About Folk Here and There: Evansville, Ind." Indianapolis Recorder 21 Oct. 1939: 15. Print. ; "Minnie Slade Bishop, Congressman's Mother, Dies at 89." AccessNorthGa.com. AccessNorthGa.com, 16 Sept. 2004. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. ; "Death Elsewhere: Minnie Slade Bishop." Rome News-Tribune 18 Sept. 2004: 5A. Print. ; "Marries in Georgia." The Evansville Argus 29 Aug. 1942: 1. Print. ; "To Spend Summer in N.C." The Evansville Argus 30 May 1941: 1. Print. ; Fenton, Michele T. "Way Down Yonder at the Cherry Street Branch: A Short History of Evansville's Negro Library." Indiana Libraries 30.2 (2011): 39. Print.
The Carnegie Negro Library of Meridian, Mississippi opened in 1913. Located on the corner of 13th Street and 28th Avenue, this library was the first library for African Americans in Lauderdale County. Land for the library was provided by St. Paul's United Methodist Church, and $8,000 in Carnegie funds was allotted for the library's construction. In 1974, the library closed, and the building was torn down on May 28, 2008.
Update 10/28/2012:
Additional resources relating to the Carnegie Negro Library of Meridian, Mississippi:
"Improvements." The Christian Educator 27.2 (1916): 12. Print.
Work, Monroe N. "Libraries for Negroes." The Negro Yearbook: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1921-1922. Tuskegee, AL: The Negro Yearbook Book Publishing Co., 1922. 268. Print.
Update 2/29/2013:
The Carnegie Negro Library of Meridian, Mississippi is mentioned in the following sources:
McAllister, Dorothy. "Library Service to the Colored Race." Mississippi Library News 17.2 (1953):113-114. Print.
Gleason, Eliza Atkins. The Southern Negro and the Public Library. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1941. 76. Print.
Sources: McMillen, Neil R. Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow. Urbana: U of Illinois P. 1989. 11. Print. ; Beal, Billie C. "Freedom Summer and Integrating the Meridian, Mississippi Public Library." Newsletter of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association 36.3 (2007): 1. Print. ; McKee, Anne. "I Could Write A Book." Meridian Star 10 Jan. 2008: n. pag. Web. 7 Aug. 2011. ; Conner, Tametria. "Former Carnegie Library Demolished." WTOK.com. News Center 11 (Meridian, MS), 28 May 2008. Web. 7 Aug. 2011. ; McKee, Anne. "The Little Museum That Could, and Did, Thrives in the Twenty-First Century." Meridian Star 26 Apr. 2007: n. pag. Web. 7 Aug. 2011. ; Battles, David M. The History of Public Library Access for African Americans in the South or, Leaving Behind the Plow. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2009. 35-36. Print.
In honor of Veterans Day, we will recognize Sadie Peterson Delaney - a pioneer in library services to military veterans:
Sadie Peterson Delaney (1889-1958), a native of Rochester, New York, was the head librarian at the U.S. Veterans Administration Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama (1924-1958) and promoted the use of bibliotherapy in helping the hospital's patients.
Prior to her career at the U.S. Veterans Administration Hospital, Ms. Delaney was a librarian at the New York Public Library (she left in 1924). She received her library science education at the New York Public Library's Library School, completing her training in 1921. Ms. Delaney passed away in 1958.
See related posts: Mattie Herd Roland and the Booker T. Washington Branch Library (Birmingham, Alabama); and Dulcina DeBerry and the Huntsville Public Library (Huntsville, Alabama).
Sources: Gubert, Betty K. "Sadie Peterson Delaney: Pioneer Bibliotherapist." American Libraries 24.2 (1993):124-125, 127, 129-130. Print. ; Jordan, Casper Leroy, and E.J. Josey. "A Chronology of Events in Black Librarianship." Handbook of Black Librarianship. Ed. E.J. Josey and Marva DeLoach. 2nd ed. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2000. 6. Print. ; Jordan, Casper Leroy. "African American Forerunners Librarianship." Handbook of Black Librarianship. Ed. E.J. Josey and Marva DeLoach. 2nd ed. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2000. 30-32. Print. ; Robinson, Carrie. "Alabama Association of School Librarians." Handbook of Black Librarianship. Ed. E.J. Josey and Marva DeLoach. 2nd ed. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2000. 53-54. Print. ; "Obituary." Bulletin of the American Medical Library Association 46.3 (1958): 495. Print. ; Barrett, Kayla and Bishop, Barbara A. "Integration and the Alabama Library Association: Not So Black and White." Libraries & Culture 33.2 (1998): 146-148. Print. ; King, Annie Greene. "Library Service and the Black Librarian in Alabama." The Black Librarian in the Southeast Reminiscences, Activities, and Challenges. Ed. Annette L. Phinazee. Durham: NCCU School of Library Science, 1980. Print.
The Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center was established on the campus of Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana in 1968. Originally named Black House, the center was created to serve the university's African and African American students. In 1972 the center was known as the Black Culture Center; in 1997 the African American Cultural Center, and then in 2002, the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center. Housed within the center are the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library, the African American Arts Institute, and the Office of Diversity Education.
See related post: Purdue University Black Cultural Center.
Sources: "About Us." Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center... Where You Belong. Indiana University, 28 Aug. 2008. Web. 26 Jan. 2011. ; "IU Students' Protest Prevents Black Library Closing." Jet 109.20 (2006): 32. Print.
Update 04/17/2012:
Additional article about the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center:
Jackson-Brown, Grace. "Indiana Builds Three African American Special Collections." College & Research Libraries News 55.2 (1994): 75, 83.
Update 09/02/2012:
More articles about the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center:
"I.U.'s Black Culture Center Finally Gets Permanent Home." Indianapolis Recorder 23 June 1973: 14. Print.
"Black Student Affairs Coordinator is Named." Indianapolis Recorder 9 Sept. 1972: 14. Print.
"Black Culture Center at IU to Have Broad Program." Indianapolis Recorder 14 Oct. 1972: 14. Print.
"IU Mourns Death of Dr. Herman C. Hudson, Founder of Many African American Programs on Campus." Indianapolis Recorder 21 Feb. 2003: A1. Print.
*Note: The Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center is named for the first African American man and the first African American woman to graduate from Indiana University -- Marcellus Neal (1895) and Frances Marshall (1919).
"Indiana University Alumni Association Neal-Marshall Alumni Club Invites You to Attend Reunion XIII 'Attaining the Dream'." Indianapolis Recorder 21 June 1997: A5. Print.
"A Walk through Bloomington's African American History." Historic Tour Guide No. 14. Bloomington, IN: City of Bloomington, n.d. Pdf File. Available online at:
http://bloomington.in.gov/media/media/application/pdf/5459.pdf
