More Details

Summary:

"Librarians around the country are currently on a battleground, defending their right to purchase and circulate books dealing with issues of race and systemic racism. Despite this work, the library community has often overlooked-even ignored-its own history of white supremacy and deliberate inaction on the part of white librarians and library leadership. Author Wayne A. Wiegand takes a crucial step to amend this historical record. In Silence or Indifference: Racism and Jim Crow Segregated Public School Libraries analyzes and critiques the world of professional librarianship between 1954 and 1974. Wiegand begins by identifying racism in the practice and customs of public school libraries in the years leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. This culture permeated the next two decades, as subsequent Supreme Court decisions led to feeble and mostly unsuccessful attempts to integrate Jim Crow public schools and their libraries. During this same period, the profession was honing its national image as a defender of intellectual freedom, a proponent of the freedom to read, and an opponent of censorship. Still, the community did not take any unified action to support Brown or to visibly oppose racial segregation. As Black school librarians and their Black patrons suffered through the humiliations and hostility of the Jim Crow educational establishment, the American library community remained largely ambivalent and silent. The book brings to light a distressing history that continues to impact the library community, its students, and its patrons. Currently available school library literature skews the historical perspective that informs the present. In Silence or Indifference is the first attempt to establish historical accountability for the systemic racism contemporary school librarianship inherited in the twenty-first century"-- [Provided by publisher]

Table of Contents:

• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations used throughout the book
• Prologue
• Chapter 1: An era of accommodation
• Chapter 2: The White world of school librarianship to 1954
• Chapter 3: Black school librarianship's response before 1954
• Chapter 4: From "Brown" to Little Rock: 1954-1957
• Chapter 5: From Little Rock to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Chapter 6: The impact of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act on Jim Crow segregated school libraries, 1965-1968
• Chapter 7: Disintegration of segregated Jim Crow schools
• Epilogue
• Abbreviations for unpublished primary sources in citations
• Notes
• Selected bibliography
• Index.

Author/Creator:

Wiegand, Wayne A., 1946- , author

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

In silence or indifference: racism and Jim Crow segregated public school libraries [by Wiegand, W.A.]

Other Related Resources:

Print version: In silence or indifference [by Wiegand, W.A.] (Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2024 — ISBN 9781496853066; LCCN 2024020930)

Subjects:

African Americans and libraries — History — 20th century

African Americans — Books and reading — History — 20th century

School libraries — United States — History — 20th century

Young adults' libraries — United States — History — 20th century

Libraries and teenagers — United States

African American librarians

African Americans — Legal status, laws, etc.

Legal status

1900-1999

African Americans — Books and reading

African Americans

School libraries

Young adults' libraries

Libraries and teenagers

African Americans and libraries

United States

Genres:

History

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on August 28, 2024).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 249 pages) : illustrations

Digital Characteristics:

text file

Call Numbers:

Z711.9 .W544 2024eb

ISBNs:

9781496853110 (electronic book)
1496853113 (electronic book)
9781496853097 (electronic book)
1496853091 (electronic book)
9781496853080 (electronic book)
1496853083 (electronic book)
9781496853103 (electronic book)
1496853105 (electronic book)
9781496853066 (hardcover) [Invalid]
9781496853073 (paperback) [Invalid]

Library of Congress Control Numbers:

2024020931

OCLC Numbers:

1437889058