Historians have certainly been aware that during the era of Jim Crow in the South, almost every institution, from factory floors to telephone booths, was segregated. Public libraries, belying their name, were likewise arenas of contestation and segregation. Although many scholars have stated this fact, few of them have looked into the matter further. This oversight has now been addressed in Knott’s engrossing and detailed study that explains how these segregated libraries were created; what materials they contained; and, most importantly, how African Americans fought to gain access to these facilities from which they were routinely barred. As a result, African Americans themselves sought to establish their own public libraries.
Knott quotes John Hope Franklin’s wry comment about the “imaginative” tactics of segregation: “The supply of ideas for new ways to segregate whites and Negroes seemed inexhaustible” (52). Indeed, denying African Americans access to public spaces was an idea older...