“A Mind and a Spirit”: Negotiating African American Exclusion From the Jacksonville Public Library

• In Event: Educating Black Youth: Libraries, Literature, and Clubs

Abstract

The Jacksonville Public Library opened in 1905, making it Florida’s first tax-supported public library and a visible symbol of the city’s emerging “New South” status. Of particular note was the provision of space for “colored patrons,” who comprised 57% of Jacksonville’s population. Despite little initial dissension over the inclusion of African Americans, library officials almost immediately began a process of negotiating them out of the building. From the first echoes of enthusiastic support for separation to subsequent demands for a separate colored branch , this case offers an instructive example of the dynamics of negotiated exclusion, intended by whites to maintain white supremacy and by African Americans to wrest some semblance of equality out of “voluntary” separation.

Author

• Linda Mizell, University of Colorado - Boulder