Please join Wayne  A. Wiegand, author of The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism, as he tells the comprehensive story of the integration of southern public libraries.

As in other efforts to integrate civic institutions in the 1950s and 1960s, the determination of local activists won the battle against segregation in libraries. In particular, the willingness of young black community members to take part in organized protests and direct actions ensured that local libraries would become genuinely free to all citizens.

The event will include remarks by Judge U.W. Clemon, Shelly Millender, and Jeff Drew (on behalf of his mother Addine “Deenie” Drew, whose activism led to the desegregation of the Birmingham Public Library in 1963).

The event will be held in the East Grand Reading Room. Light refreshments will be served.