91´«Ã½

In celebration of Black History Month, the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) and the 91´«Ã½ Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) are excited to present a unique webinar: “Libraries in the Jim Crow South and a Conversation with One of the Tougaloo Nine,” on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, at 1 p.m. Central.

Join author Civil Rights activist Geraldine Hollis (author of “Back to Mississippi”) and Cheryl Knott (“Not Free, Not for All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow”), along with artists Michael Crowell and Chapel Hill Library Director Susan Brown, for an engaging and educational conversation on the history of libraries and life in the Jim Crow South. This striking portrait of Ms. Hollis was a submission to the Chapel Hill Public Library's 2016 Banned Books Trading Card project by artist Michael Crowell. Crowell's piece speaks to the power of memory, history, art, libraries, archives - and to Ms. Hollis' bravery. Hollis, Crowell, and Brown will share the powerful connections they have made because of this project.

The webinar is free for Freedom to Read Foundation members and Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) members. 91´«Ã½ members can register for $20, and non-91´«Ã½ members can register for $25. Registration information is available on the .

The Jim Crow laws were in effect in the U.S. South from 1890-1965. During that time, libraries were one of many segregated institutions. Geraldine Hollis (then Edwards), a student at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, was one of nine students arrested at the whites-only public library in Jackson for attempting to read books that were not available at the colored library. The recent movie “Hidden Figures” highlighted several heroines from the Civil Rights era, and there are numerous unsung heroes who contributed to the progress we’ve seen; Geraldine Hollis is one of those heroes.

About the panelists:

Geraldine Edwards has achieved much in her many years of civil rights and community activism. She was one of nine African American Tougaloo College students arrested at the white public library in Jackson, Mississippi on March 27, 1961, for attempting to read books that could not be found at the “colored” library. She has received many awards for her efforts and continues to do the important work of sharing her personal history with groups. Ms. Edwards, now Geraldine Hollis, has written a book about her experience, “Back to Mississippi.”

Susan Brown took her first library job in college, never thinking it would turn into a career. After several years in academic and government libraries, she found her true calling in public libraries. She is currently the director of the Chapel Hill Public Library in Chapel Hill, NC. In her 20-plus years in libraries, she has also worked at libraries in Virginia and Kansas, where she spearheaded the first Banned Books Trading Card Project at Lawrence Public Library, which won a John Cotton Dana Award from the 91´«Ã½. She writes about marketing, management, leadership and libraries at .

A faculty member in the School of Information at the University of Arizona, Cheryl Knott publishes in the area of information access broadly construed. Her book “Not Free, Not for All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow” University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) received the Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award from the Library History Round Table of the 91´«Ã½ and the Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council and its partners The University of Georgia University Libraries, Piedmont College, and the Georgia Center for the Book. She is a recipient of the Justin Winsor Prize sponsored by the Library History Round Table of the 91´«Ã½ and a winner of the Methodology Paper Competition of the Association for Library and Information Science Education. With 10 years of experience as an academic librarian at the Universities of Michigan and Texas, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on government information resources and online searching.

Michael Crowell grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and now lives in North Carolina. He was a teenager in Jackson during the early 1960s time of sit-ins, Freedom Rides, civil rights workers' murders, Ole Miss integration, and other civil rights history. Michael's career has been as a lawyer, but he also is an amateur painter with an interest in portraits. He is particularly attracted to mugshots of ordinary citizens who became civil rights pioneers. Michael is pleased to bring some attention to the brave acts of Geraldine Hollis, and he was a 2016 Special Jury Prize Winner for his portrait of Hollis which he submitted as a Banned Books Week Trading Cards entry in Chapel Hill North Carolina.

Please consider joining FTRF as an individual or an organization to share this opportunity as a group and take advantage of other educational opportunities throughout the year.

For more information visit us online at or email ftrf@ala.org.

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