'We Are Staying': New Book Explores Fight To Desegregate Northern Virginia Libraries

NORTHERN VIRGINIA — The creation of public libraries in Northern Virginia, where all people are welcomed, took decades to become a reality, according to a new book on the exclusion of Black residents from libraries across the region.

The book, “Desegregation In Northern Virginia Libraries,” released Monday, shows how public libraries in the region have not always embodied the best of society where anyone can walk into a local branch and borrow a book or use the materials. The widely held view of public libraries as a place for learning, free from racism and bigotry, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

In their research for the book, Chris Barbuschak and Suzanne LaPierre, librarians in Fairfax County Public Library’s Virginia Room, found that public libraries are often referred to as bastions of democracy, providing equal access to knowledge and shared resources.

“Yet public libraries have not always been open to all,” Barbuschak and LaPierre explain in the book. “During the Jim Crow era in the southern United States, many public libraries served white residents only. Black residents often had no public library service at all or were restricted to separate libraries or bookmobile stops.”

In Fairfax County, the Vienna Town Library “fiercely resisted” pressure to integrate its library, located at the corner of Center Street Southeast and Maple Avenue, according to the book. Not only did they fight to keep Black people out of the library, the Vienna Town Library did not want white people checking out books for their Black neighbors.

When Vienna Town library officials learned a white woman had checked out books for the children of a prominent Black family in the town, they sent someone to the family's home to retrieve the children's books.

"That, to me as a librarian, was flabbergasting because taking books back from children because of their race is the antithesis of everything libraries should be about. That was a story that really surprised me," LaPierre said in an interview with Patch.

The Vienna library’s opposition to letting Black people use its resources led to the creation of a Friends of the Library group in 1958 that lobbied Fairfax County to open a library in the town.

The friends group wanted a library in Vienna that equally provided materials and services to all residents. The lobbying paid off, with the opening of the integrated Patrick Henry branch of the Fairfax County Public Library in 1962.

Across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., the City of Alexandria witnessed one of the most publicized resistance efforts to public library segregation in Virginia. A 1939 protest at the Kate Waller Barrett Library, organized by Samuel Wilbert Tucker, was a milestone for civil rights activism.

One of the participants in the 1939 sit-in at the Alexandria library, 19-year-old William "Buddy" Evans, told police, "We are staying," as he sat holding a book. The police had just informed him that he and the four other young Black men would be arrested if they refused to leave the library.

Evans' words — "We are staying" — summarized the bravery of the young men, LaPierre noted.

Although it took another 20 years for Alexandria to integrate its libraries, the efforts of Tucker, Evans and the other activists brought much-needed attention to the injustice of public libraries barring access to citizens based on race, according to the book.

"What I took away from this project was that progress doesn’t happen just because time passes. Progress happens because people take action to make things better," LaPierre said. "We need to be cognizant of the fact that people worked hard to get us where we are today."

In October 2019, 80 years after the sit-in, the charges against the five men were dismissed by the Alexandria Circuit Court after research by Alexandria Library staff found the original judge in the case never issued a ruling and the charges were technically still outstanding.

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While numerous books and studies have been published on the long struggle to desegregate public schools, “Desegregation In Northern Virginia Libraries” is the first book that takes a comprehensive look at how libraries were segregated in Virginia. The book, with a complete index and extensive end notes, contains research and photographs that have not been published anywhere else.

The book originated with a question posed by a member of the Fairfax County Public Library Board of Trustees. At an April 2021 information session for new library board members, Dranesville District Trustee Sujatha Hampton asked if Fairfax County Public Libraries had been segregated.

As librarians in the Virginia Room at the City of Fairfax Regional Library, Barbuschak and LaPierre were called upon by FCPL Director Jessica Hudson to look into the question about segregation in Fairfax County libraries.

In an interview with Patch, Barbuschak, who heads the Virginia Room, said FCPL had previously received the same question and had been relying on a survey conducted in 1962 by Bernice Lloyd Bell, a library student at Atlanta University in Georgia, as part of her thesis. Bell sought to discover if progress had been made in making public library facilities available to Black residents in Southern states since two similar surveys had been conducted in 1953.

Bell sent out questionnaires to 290 libraries, including 33 library systems in Virginia, asking a range of questions concerning integration. At the time, FCPL responded that it had been open to all races since its founding in 1939.

But in their deeper research, Barbuschak and LaPierre discovered that FCPL had not accurately responded to the survey question in 1962.

“Although FCPL positively responded to Bell’s survey as always being open to all races, this was in fact not always the case,” they write in the book. “The Fairfax County Public Library Board of Trustees agreed to serve the Black residents of the county at one of its first board meetings in 1940; however, segregated service and limiters were in place from the beginning.”

As they learned more about segregation in libraries across Fairfax County, the authors expanded their research to include in-depth looks at neighboring jurisdictions in Northern Virginia — Arlington, Prince William and Loudoun counties and the Cities of Falls Church and Alexandria — as well as Washington, D.C., and libraries in other parts of Virginia.

During the months they spent on the project, Barbuschak and LaPierre realized the importance of their research and started debating how they might be able to bring the story to more people after they presented their report to the Library Board of Trustees.

"We were so excited to get this story out there," Barbuschak said.

As it turned out, when Barbuschak and LaPierre presented their 100-plus page report to the Library Board of Trustees in the fall of 2021, some of the library board members were so impressed that they encouraged them to turn the report into a book.

“I was blown away by the research,” said Hampton, who wrote the foreword for the book.

Hampton, who serves as the education chair of the Fairfax County NAACP, said the research would not have happened if she had not asked about segregation of public libraries in Fairfax County.

"It shows the value of diverse membership on the Board of Trustees," she told Patch. "We talk about school segregation all the time, but not libraries, which are an absolutely irreplaceable place."

Once they received a green light from county officials to expand it into a book, Barbuschak and LaPierre pitched the book idea to The History Press, which agreed to publish the book.

As librarians in FCPL's Virginia Room, they receive scores of history books, many of which are published by The History Press. "We knew it was the largest publisher of local history books," LaPierre said. "It seemed like the logical choice to go to them first to see if they would be interested," she said.

Barbuschak and LaPierre both agreed to donate the proceeds they make from the book — $1 for each book sold — to the Fairfax County NAACP.

"It was a passion project for both of us," Barbuschak said. "It quickly became a labor of love."

A book release event for “Desegregation In Northern Virginia Libraries” will be held on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 4 p.m. at the City of Fairfax Regional Library at 10360 North Street in Fairfax, where the authors will give a presentation of their research, and copies of the book will be available for sale.