My Librarian Hero: Ruth Brown

I wanted to start off this week's blog by talking about something I came across in chapter three of the Portable MLIS, "Human Rights, Democracy, and Librarians" by Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Katharine Phenix. Not many people realize that librarians have often had to fight for their community's right to freedom of expression and opinion, right to privacy, and right of equality under the law. During tumultuous times in our nation's history (and undoubtedly in other nations as well) librarians have continually fought for the protection of these fundamental human rights. As the chapter asserts, "a democratic society relies on an informed citenzry" (p. 23) so that those informed citizens can use their best judgement in selecting the legislators and representatives of their democratic government. One of the places in our society that allows for this informed citizenry to develop is at the public library. Public libraries are truly democratic institutions in that anyone and everyone who visits them is allowed access to information, and librarians have fiercly upheld this democratic tradition.

While the chapter mentions several librarians who acted quite bravely and suffered much in acting as human rights advocates for their patrons, one librarian in particular caught my interest. In 1950 Ruth Brown, a librarian of outstanding achievements, was fired from the Bartlesville Public Library in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, after 30 years of service to her community. Brown, a former president of the Oklahoma Library Association and long time civil rights activist, was released from her position by a newly elected library board "ostensibly because the library owned The Nation, The New Republic, and Soviet Russia Today" (p. 29). In reality, Brown was asked to step down due to her involvement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). For years, Brown had welcomed African American children into the library through segregated story hours, and had eventually worked to integrate the library completely. The fear that McCarthyism engendered coupled with Brown's controversial civil rights advocacy caused those in power to chose to dismiss a comendable library professional at a time when she was most needed.

Being from Oklahoma myself, I was quite pleased to see Ruth Brown's inclusion in the chapter. Though I love my home state, Oklahoma's physical location within the Bible-belt and its nearness to the South have helped the state to garner many cases of civil rights injustices over its history (the persecution and discrimination of Native Americans and the Tulsa Race Riot, to name a few). It is astounding that in a state where many still today hold prejudices, over 50 years ago Ruth Brown was fighting for equality in her small town Oklahoma library. She makes me proud to be both a librarian-in-training and an Okie! 

For more information on Ruth Brown, click here, or see the book above, The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library by Louise S. Robbins.