A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. A total of 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems. 1,689 were built in the United States, 660 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, 125 in Canada, and 25 others in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Serbia, Belgium, France, the Caribbean, Mauritius, Malaysia, and Fiji.
Houston Public Library is the public library system serving Houston, Texas, United States.
The Denver Public Library is the public library system of the City and County of Denver, Colorado. The system includes the Denver Central Library, located in the Golden Triangle district of Downtown Denver, as well as 25 branch locations and two bookmobiles. The library's collection totals more than 2 million items, including books, reference materials, movies, music, and photographs. Of that total, more than 347,000 items are in specific collections including the Western History and Genealogy Department, Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, and Reference Department holdings.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
The Louisville Free Public Library (LFPL) is the public library system in Louisville, Kentucky, and the largest public library system in the U.S. state of Kentucky.
The Carnegie Library at FAMU is a historic building on the campus of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. Built in 1908, the two-story, white-columned building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. "It was part of a national building program by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie." The Black Archives was established by the Florida Legislature in 1971 and opened in 1975. It was one of many public and college libraries funded by Andrew Carnegie, which were named Carnegie Library after him. It is the oldest brick building on the campus and the first Carnegie Library to be built on a black land-grant college campus.
The Crescent Hill Branch Library, constructed in 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky, was one of the first of nine Carnegie-endowed libraries built in Louisville, and is a branch of the Louisville Free Public Library. The building has a Beaux-Arts architecture style created by the Thomas & Bohne architect firm. The west side of the library was added in 1961 and the entire library was renovated in 1988. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 for its architectural significance and the educational impact on the community up to 1924.
The National African American Archives and Museum, formerly known as the Davis Avenue Branch of Mobile Public Library, is an archive and history museum located in Mobile, Alabama. It serves as a repository for documents, records, photographs, books, African carvings, furniture, and special collections that relate to the African-American experience in the United States. Some of the collection was developed when the building was part of the Mobile Public Library as the Davis Avenue Branch.
Virginia Lacy Jones was an American librarian who throughout her 50-year career in the field pushed for the integration of public and academic libraries. She was one of the first African Americans to earn a PhD in Library Science and became dean of Atlanta University's School of Library Sciences.
Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr. was an American poet, writer, playwright, and community leader raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Cotter was one of the earliest African-American playwrights to be published. He was known as "Kentucky's first Negro poet with real creative ability." Cotter was born at the start of the American Civil War, and was raised in poverty with no formal education until the age of 22. He later became an educator and an advocate of black education.
The Carnegie Branch Library at 13th St and 28th Ave in Meridian, Mississippi is one of two former Carnegie libraries in the city, both funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie in 1904. This library was built for blacks while the other was built for whites. The other library was built at 25th Ave and 7th St and now houses the Meridian Museum of Art. Both buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The black library was demolished in 2008.
Public libraries in the American Colonies can be traced back to 1656, when a Boston merchant named Captain Robert Keayne willed his collection of books to the town.
Rachel Davis Harris was an American librarian and activist. She was an influential female African American director and children's librarian of the Louisville Free Public Library, Western Colored Branch, one of the first segregated libraries built in the southern United States. She promoted library outreach to youths and equitable access to library services in the black community during the Jim Crow era.
William Henry Steward was a civil rights activist from Louisville, Kentucky. In February 1876, he was appointed the first black letter carrier in Kentucky. He was the leading layman of the General Association of Negro Baptists in Kentucky and played a key role in the founding of Simmons College of Kentucky by the group in 1879. He continued to play an important role in the college during his life. He was also co-founder of the American Baptist, a journal associated with the group, and Steward went on to be the journal's editor. He was a leader in Louisville civic and public life, and played a role in extending educational opportunities in the city to black children. In 1897, his political associations led to his appointment as judge of registration and election for the Fifteenth Precinct of the Ninth Ward, overseeing voter registration for the election. This was the first appointment of an African American to such a position in Kentucky. He was elected president of the Afro-American Press Association in the 1890s He was a close associate of Booker T. Washington, and in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Steward was a prominent member of the National Afro-American Council, which was dominated by Washington. He was president of the council from 1904 to 1905. He was a lifelong opponent of segregation and was frequently involved in anti-Jim Crow law activities. In 1914 he helped found a Louisville branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which he left in 1920 to become a key player in the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC). He was also a prominent freemason and twice elected Worshipful Master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky.
The Live Oak Public Libraries are a consortium of sixteen public libraries in the Savannah metropolitan area and Hinesville – Fort Stewart metropolitan area of Georgia, United States. The library provides services for Chatham County, Effingham County, and Liberty County. The library headquarters are located in the Bull Street Library in Savannah, which is one of two Carnegie libraries in the system.
East Henry Street Carnegie Library, also known as the Savannah Carnegie Library, and historically as the Carnegie Colored Library, is a public library established for and by African Americans in Savannah, Georgia during the segregation era. The historic building has been preserved and renovated. It is now a branch in Savannah's Live Oak Public Libraries system. The library is an example of Prairie style architecture and is one of only two Carnegie library projects for African-Americans in Georgia. It was the local library for James Alan McPherson, who became the first African American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize and for Clarence Thomas who went on to become a judge on the United States Supreme Court. The building has won honors for its renovation and historical preservation. It is a contributing property of the Savannah Victorian Historic District.
The W. L. D. Johnson Neighborhood Library is a Houston Public Library branch in Houston, Texas. It replaced the Carnegie Colored Library, a Carnegie Library established by Houston's African American community in the Fourth Ward that was demolished for Interstate Highway 45 construction in 1962. The current branch is located at 3517 Reed Road. The library is named after W.L.D. Johnson, Sr., a man who raised funds for the purchase of the Carnegie Colored Library and served on the board of directors of that library. The new library building was dedicated on June 16, 1964 and replaced the original Carnegie Colored Library.
Thomas Fountain Blue was a minister, educator, and civic leader who led the Colored Branches of the Louisville Free Public Library (LFPL) and was an early trainer of African-American librarians. Blue was the first African-American to head a public library and his efforts led to the Louisville Free Public Library being nationally recognized as a leader in segregated library administration and education for African Americans.
Marian M. Hadley was Nashville, Tennessee's first African American librarian, serving as the first librarian of the Nashville Negro Public Library, a branch of the Nashville Public Library for African American patrons. She went on to work at the Chicago Public Library for almost twenty years, building and promoting the library's collection of African American history and culture.
Black Kentuckians are residents of the state of Kentucky who are of African ancestry. The history of Blacks in the US state of Kentucky starts at the same time as the history of White Americans; Black Americans settled Kentucky alongside white explorers such as Daniel Boone. As of 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, African Americans make up 8.5% of Kentucky's population. Compared to the rest of the population, the African American census racial category is the 2nd largest.
