Libraries are taken for granted by too many people in the United States today, but free public libraries didn’t exist until the 19th century. Even a small public library can hold more volumes that most wealthy people will acquire. All that information can be available to anyone with a library card. But not all libraries have been equal or treated their clients fairly. Virginia Lacy Jones is one reason your public library is open to so many people today.
Jones was born on June 25, 1912 in Ohio but lived primarily in Clarksburg, West Virginia until she was 15 years old. Her parents, Edward and Ellen Lacy, faced challenges, as most Black parents did, living in a racist world. Their local library was not segregated, so Jones and her mother made many trips there to check out and return books, which were an active part of the family’s life.
In 1927, Jones moved to St. Louis, Missouri to finish her last two years of secondary education at the Sumner High School, where her uncle was a teacher. The school was the first Black American high school west of the Mississippi River, and it was part of a segregated public school system in St. Louis at that time. Jones would have received an education focused on the classics, meaning the culture of white Europeans, heavily influenced by Greco-Roman texts.
However, public libraries and transportation were not segregated in St. Louis. To enter an essay contest, Jones turned to the library as her family had always done, but this time something important happened: a librarian taught her how to use the periodical indexes instead of just getting her the materials she needed. Think about that for a moment. When you teach someone to find what they need, you empower them to have more control over their education, and you give them skills that can lead to better opportunities in life.
Originally, Jones had planned to become a teacher, but that experience with a librarian changed her mind. She went to the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, the only library school open to Black Americans in the South for a while, but then found a job as an assistant librarian at the Louisville Municipal College in Kentucky. Economic considerations were a strong consideration for Jones then, as it had been her entire life. However, it became clear that any advancement in the field would require college degrees, so Jones returned to Hampton and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in social studies education in 1935.
Degrees were not the only impediment to advancing in libraries; racism was also a major hurdle. Back at Hampton, Jones had found a mentor in Florence Rising Curtis, a white librarian who had been advocating for both Asian and Black students in her field for years. Curtis invited Jones to an annual conference for the American Library Association (ALA), but since that meeting was in Richmond, Virginia, segregation prevented most Black attendees from really participating. Jones was fair enough complexioned that she could pass, something she didn’t like to do, but in this case, she did not correct racist assumptions so that she could fully participate in the meeting.
In 1936, Jones become the Head Librarian at the Louisville Municipal College and also taught classes there. Jones received a fellowship to attend the University of Illinois, where she earned a master’s degree in library science in 1938. A change in leadership back at Louisville Municipal College created a hostile atmosphere, forcing Jones to resign. Immediately she was offered a position as catalog librarian and instructor at Atlanta University, which was establishing its own library science program. When the new school opened in 1941, Jones married her husband, Edward A. Jones, who was a professor in and chairman of the Foreign Language Department of Morehouse College, also in Atlanta, Georgia.
A second fellowship allowed Jones to go back to school, this time at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School, where she earned a PhD in library science in 1945. She was the second Black person to earn that degree in the United States. After getting her doctorate, Jones was made the Dean of the Atlanta University School of Library Service. She led that institution until 1981 and oversaw the graduation of the largest number of Black librarians of any school in the US. Jones was known for her rigorous yet empowering approach to education, taking steps to help students overcome poor primary and secondary education yet refusing to recommend any but the best students for funding or jobs.
Jones was an active member of several professional organizations. While racism kept her from joining some professional groups, such as the Georgia Library Association, she joined others that she could and worked to improve them. She was elected to the Council of the ALA and served three terms from 1946-1950, 1955-1959, and 1967-1969. In 1966, she helped create the Black Caucus of the ALA but also chaired the ALA’s Committee on the Opportunities for Negroes in the Library Profession. She was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for Library and Information Science Education or ALISE (then called the Association of American Library Schools) from 1948-1954. She served on ALISE’s board of directors from 1960 to 1964. In 1967, she became the first Black American President of ALISE. Jones was also appointed to the President's Advisory Committee on Library Research and Training Projects from 1967-1970.
During her lifetime she was recognized for her work by several professional and national organizations. In 1973, she became the first Black American to receive the Melvil Dewey Award and the Joseph W. Lippincott Award from the ALA in 1977, which in 1976 gave her their highest honor, an honorary membership. In 1979, she received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Michigan and was again honored by the ALA in 1980 with a Beta Phi Mu Award. Also in 1980, the Southeastern Library Association gave Jones the Mary Utopia Rothrock Award. Jones participated in the Black Women Oral History Project Interviews from 1976 to 1981. Her interview with them is quite eye-opening.
Even after her official retirement, Jones continued to write about racism in library education and services. She was the first director at the Robert W. Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center from 1982-1983; that library holds most of her personal and professional records today.
She died on December 3, 1984, but the Dean of Deans, as she was called at Atlanta University, helped open the doors to libraries for all Americans. The exhibit hall at the Robert W. Woodruff Library was named in her honor in 1985. In 1999, the ALA named Jones one of their 100 most important leaders of the 20th Century.