Page 23 - BCALA Winter 2018

On Tuesday, February 6, 1900,
the Washington Fire Company of Baton Rouge passed a resolution
to grant permission for the Joanna Waddill Chapter to use the second floor front room of its building as a library; in addition, the Washington Fire Company also donated $25.00 (Daily Advocate 1900) . On Thursday, May 10, 1900, the Joanna Waddill Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy formally opened the Baton Rouge Public Library at 406 Church Street near the Church Street and Laurel Street intersection (Church St. is now North 4th St.). Because of
the social custom in Baton Rouge (and other southern cities) this
new library would be off limits to African Americans. The next day the library published the following six rules in the local newspaper:
1. Every member is entitled to one book at a time, and must return
it to the library in one week from the time it was taken out, when, if desired, it can be renewed for a like period. The librarian will check the month and day on which a book is taken and returned by a member.
2. Any member who shall retain
a book longer than the time permitted, shall be fined one cent per day until the same is returned.
3. A fine of the value of the book will be charged [to] any member losing or injuring (beyond reasonable wear) the same and no other book will be given them
unless the rules and regulations are complied with.
4. Members are not allowed to lend the book to any one, not a member of their own family.
5. Always take your membership ticket to the librarian when you want a book, or it will not be given out.
6. In changing your place of residence, notify the librarian, and give the new address.
Peculiarly, one very important rule was omitted, the ruled that declared “For White Only.” The Baton Rouge Public Library was designed to serve 8,055 people (the white community) which represented only a little more than 25.8% of the total population. The other 75% were not permitted to partake in the library’s public privileges.
In the mean time, the African American community was laboring earnestly to establish, maintain, and preserve, its own culture. In
the early nineteen hundreds Baton Rouge’s African Americans had
a profound desire to eradicate illiteracy and promote the pomp of middle class attitudes, interests, and values. This striving to “pick themselves up by their boot straps” began immediately after the Civil War ended. As early as 1870, an observant white resident of Baton Rouge testified to the overwhelming number of Blacks in the city and how eager the newly freed ex-
BCALA NEWS | Volume 45, Issue 1 | 23 slaves were to uplift themselves by
building homes and obtaining an education: “Take the Army out and four-fifths of the Town would be Negroes. They tare down Houses and build for themselves upon Confiscated Ground. The Whole flat Down in Catfish [in south Baton Rouge along the river] is covered with Little Negro Shantyes and the [public] Schools are very full of Negroes” (Carleton 1996). Even as Baton Rouge’s African Americans made progress, by 1890, they met serious opposition from greedy wealthy white “gentlemen” who “bulldozed” industrious Black farmers by harassing, whipping,
or killing them if they would
not “sell their property cheaply” (Hair 1969). Nevertheless, African Americans of Baton Rouge continued to persevere and make a great effort to fortify their existence.
In 1928, East Baton Rouge Parish metropolitan accommodated two historically Black Colleges and Universities (Southern University relocated from New Orleans in 1914 and Leland College relocated from New Orleans in 1923). By 1928, African Americans in Baton Rouge had organized their own library room (room 300) in the
Old Fellow Masonic Temple, on North Boulevard. By Tuesday September 4, 1928, members of the Burroughs-Talbert Club, curators of Library Room 300, dispatched a message soliciting citizens of East