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Editor’s Note: In recognition of Black History Month, we explored our own history to understand how segregation restricted access to Library of Virginia resources. During the Jim Crow era, libraries in Virginia—like most public spaces—were segregated by race. As a result, African American community members did not have access to the same resources as their white counterparts.

Several months ago, a user asked an important question: When did the reading rooms at the Library of Virginia become integrated? This could be interpreted in two different ways, (1) when did the collections become available to Black users and (2) when did segregated seating in the reading rooms end? After reviewing numerous sources, it was possible to put together a brief overview of the Library’s service history that partially answers these questions.

In 1823, the Library of Virginia, as it is known today, was formed when the General Assembly authorized the purchase of a library “…for the use of the court of appeals and general court, and of the General Assembly…”1 with the collection housed in a room at the Capitol.2 In 1860 the Richmond Daily Examiner reported that the Library was “visited daily by professional gentlemen and others, by whom we believe, any book can be obtained for purposes of reference and use in the room itself.”3

It would be another 35 years until the Library moved to the first State Library building at 102 Governor Street4 and almost another decade after that when, in 1903, legislation was passed that allowed for the creation of a library board and the position of state librarian.5

Reading room and reference area in the first State Library building, Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia, circa 1895.

Visual Studies Collection, Special Collections, Library of Virginia.

Sources indicate that by 1926 Black users were admitted to the Library and had full access to the collections.6 At the time, this was considered unusual for Southern libraries which were often more restrictive.7 This was also the year that Virginia’s Separation of Races laws were enacted which required segregation in any place of public assemblage.8 Sources show that Library seating was segregated at least until the 1940s.9

Virginia State Library Equipment Plans, 1940, Sheet EQ4.

Accession 36627, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia.

The Separation of Races laws wouldn’t be ruled a violation of the 14th amendment until 1963,10 but a 1960 article in the New Journal and Guide stated that “public (city) libraries in Norfolk and Richmond, and the Virginia State Library in the state capital as well as some in other cities, have been open to all without segregation for varying periods of years.”11 Additionally, in 1963, Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney T. Gray Haddon remarked that there “has been no effort to enforce the seating statutes here for some time.”12

So it is not clear when segregated seating ceased in the Library’s reading rooms. In 1965, State Librarian Randolph Church stated that the Library Board had voted unanimously in favor of assuring its compliance with the Civil Rights Act and that all libraries in the state were open on a non-segregated basis.13

The struggle for equality manifested differently in libraries across the state. In Alexandria, in 1939, a sit-in protesting library segregation led to the arrest of five African American men who were denied library cards. To commemorate the 85th anniversary of this sit-in, the Alexandria Public Library organized a year-long program series and exhibition entitled “Legacy of Courage.”

Recently, the Fairfax County Public Library uncovered a previously unknown history of segregation within its facilities, documented in a comprehensive report titled Unequal Access: The Desegregation of Public Libraries in Northern Virginia.

When denied access to whites-only libraries, Black communities often established their own centers for knowledge and information sharing. Black librarian Virginia Lee created and maintained the Black History Collection at the Gainsboro Branch Library in Roanoke. The Henry Louis Holmes Library was established to serve the Black community in Arlington, Virginia during segregation. Such institutions were not just important in providing current information but also preserving the stories that the white-only institutions ignored.

In archival theory there is a term called “archival silence,” which is a recognition that there are always gaps in the archival record. Sometimes these are simply the result of an inability to save everything, but other times the gaps are deliberate.

Reading room at the Virginia State Library in Richmond, Virginia, 1988.

Visual Studies Collection, Special Collections, Library of Virginia.

There is a large archival silence in our own official records around segregation and other race-based policies at the Library of Virginia. This could be because the practice was so ingrained in the culture that no one saw a need to explicitly write it down, as common knowledge needs no citation. However, it is also possible that the gap was more deliberate.

Over the years, historians and researchers have focused on filling these gaps. Explore these titles for additional information about the segregation and integration of Virginia libraries.

Desegregation in Northern Virginia Libraries

By Chris Barbuschak and Suzanne S. LaPierre

The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism

By Wayne A. Wiegand and Shirley A. Wiegand

Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South

By Mike Selby

Not Free, Not For All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow

By Cheryl Knott

We Have Been Waiting Too Long: The Struggle Against Racial Segregation in Loudoun County, Virginia

By Matthew Exline

In Silence or Indifference: Racism and Jim Crow Segregated Public School Libraries

By Wayne A. Wiegand

-Lisa Wehrmann and Sonya Coleman

Footnotes

[1] Acts of Assembly, 1822-23, 15.

[2] Library of Virginia, The Common Wealth: Treasures from the Collections of the Library of Virginia (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1997), 10.

[3] Richmond Daily Examiner, May 3, 1860, 2.

[4] Library of Virginia, The Common Wealth, 20.

Two Hundred Years of Service to the Commonwealth: The Library of Virginia 1823-2023,” Library of Virginia, accessed January 27, 2025; see “1895 First State Library Building” timeline entry.

[5] Acts of Assembly, 1902-3-4, 378.

[6] American Library Association, Library Extension Board, and Clarence Brown Lester,  Library Extension: A Study of Public Library Conditions and Needs (Chicago: American Library Association, 1926), 76.

Alexandra Zukas, “A Power So Compelling: Services for African Americans and Steps Toward Integration at the Richmond Public Library, 1925-1964,” Libraries: Culture, History, and Society 5, no. 1 (2021): 55.

[7] “Too Much Labor in South, Expert Says,Richmond News Leader, April 29, 1926, 1.

Tommie Dora Barker, Libraries of the South: A Report on Developments, 1930-1935 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1936), 201.

[8] Virginia. 1926 Supplement to the Virginia Code of 1924, 42.

[9] Virginia State Library Board, Report of the Virginia State Library for the Year Ending June 30, 1937 (Richmond: 1937), 9.

Virginia State Library, Staff Meeting: [Minutes of the] First Staff Meeting in the New State Library Building… held December 21, 1940 (Richmond: 1940), 2.

Gary Robertson, “Book is Closing on Old State Library,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 27, 1996, A-1.

Eliza Atkins Gleason, The Southern Negro and the Public Library: A Study of the Government and Administration of Public Library Service to Negroes in the South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941), 69-70.

[10] Brown v. City of Richmond (1963), Virginia Reports, 204:471.

[11] “Court Order Ends Color Bar: Portsmouth Library Open; Petersburg Arrests Group,” New Journal and Guide, March 12, 1960, C1.

[12] Allan Jones, “Few Effects Seen from Court Ruling on Seating Laws,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 12, 1963, 1.

[13] “Librarian to Sign Civil Rights Pact,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 26, 1965, 3.

Header Image Citation

Reading room at the Virginia State Library in Richmond, Virginia, circa 1969. Visual Studies Collection, Special Collections, Library of Virginia.

Lisa Wehrmann

Electronic Reference Services Coordinator

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