Celebrating African American Librarians and Historic Figures

In honor of Black History Month 2026, this blog post will highlight African American contributors to librarianship, African American historical figures shaped by libraries, and CMU Libraries’ Black History collection. 

African American librarians have made numerous meaningful contributions to librarianship in terms of cataloging, collections development, and programming best practices.  Dorothy Porter, a former librarian at Howard University, countered racist categorization methods by creating a system that organized books about African American history by genre and author. Charlemae Hill Rollins, a former librarian at the Chicago Public Library, promoted non-racist development of children’s book collections through her work We Build Together. Finally, Sadie Peterson Delaney, a former New York Public Library and Tuskegee Veterans Administration Hospital librarian, shaped library programming best practices through her work with juvenile delinquents, blind children, and foreign-born children at the New York Public library and her work with veteran bibliotherapy (healing through the reading of books) and the development of moving lending libraries at the  VA Hospital. These women are but a few examples of how African American librarians have meaningfully affected librarianship for the better. 

Many libraries across the United States have also played an important role in supporting the educational development of prominent African American historical figures. One of these libraries was the East Henry Street Carnegie library, which was established in 1909 and located in then segregated Savannah, Georgia. Two prominent African American historical figures who got their start at the East Henry Street Carnegie library were the first African American Pulitzer Prize winner, James Alan McPherson, and sitting United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In their personal writings and comments, both have reflected upon how important this library was in shaping their pursuits. 

The CMU Libraries also holds a vast collection pertaining to Black History. This collection includes works on Black History in general and works by African American Artists and Scholars. Historical figures whose writings are included in this collection include black activist Malcolm X, jazz and swing music singed Billie Holiday, and numerous scholars who specialize in the topic of black history . These inclusion of these titles/authors in the collection represent CMU Libraries’ dedication to promoting the study of African American history and enabling others to teach about it.  

These examples make it clear that African American History is very much tied to librarianship generally and to the CMU Libraries specifically. We hope that this blog post helps illustrate those connections.