by Lee Pierre
With the beginning of school, students return and/or start a new daily routine that some willingly accept and others, not so willingly. For those attending, there should be an appreciation of being able to attend school, as the past has shown that education was not always available for everyone.
In the United States, there was a time when certain individuals were prohibited from learning to read or write based on the color of their skin. Historically, black people were not allowed to read, write, or even own a book because of anti-literacy laws. Anti-literacy laws made it illegal for enslaved and free people of color to read or write. To destroy any semblance of humanity, plantation owners kept enslaved Black people in the dark. Most enslaved people didn’t even know the year they were born or their lineage. It was a purposeful removal of identity to perpetuate the slave mentality. Since most Blacks were laborers, society saw no reason for education.
During the Jim Crow era, African Americans in Roanoke were denied access to public libraries. In response, the Gainsboro Branch Library was founded in 1921 to serve the Black community, becoming the second public library for African Americans in Virginia.
Virginia Y. Lee served as the librarian at the Gainsboro Branch for 43 years, from 1928 until her retirement in 1971. Lee established the library’s Black History Collection, a significant archive of African American literary and historical materials. When city officials ordered her to dispose of the collection in 1941 due to racial biases, Lee refused and instead hid the materials in the library’s basement, ensuring the collection’s survival. The collection, now known as the Virginia Y. Lee Collection, remains at the Gainsboro Library, a lasting tribute to her work and a crucial resource for preserving Black history in Roanoke.
Calvin Alexander Ramsey grew up in a time when adult illiteracy was an issue among Black citizens. He noted that ‘living on a farm teaches a person a different kind of literacy – knowing which crops to plant and when’ is something that doesn’t need book knowledge. This factor of his life interested him in choosing to put his memories in writing.
His book “The Library in the Woods” is an inspirational account of Ramsey’s own experiences growing up in the 1950s when his family moved to Roxboro, North Carolina.
The book tells the story of Junior and his parents while they were living on a farm. After several crop failures, Junior and his family must relocate to town where the father can work at the local factory and the mother can do “day work,” cleaning and laundry for others.
The move brings changes to young Junior’s life – a wonderful one comes from a schoolmate’s revelation: “We have our own library.”
The small building in a nearby clearing contained a dazzling world of books, and Junior runs home with a book about George Washington Carver for his father, a book of poetry by Phillis Wheatley for his mother, and “one on the three musketeers” for himself. The book ends with Junior and his father sharing a tender moment.
Ramsey further mentioned that his father could not read and his oldest brother, Junior, did help him with written documents. “My father may not have been able to read however he was a storyteller and passed on most of the history of the family to his children,” he remarked proudly.
The book emphasizes the importance of libraries that were open to Blacks. During his younger years in Roxboro, NC, Ramsey states how fortunate he was that “Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt Barnett opened a library for the Black community. It provided the children in the neighborhood somewhere to go and not only provided the children with books but was “an oasis” because it offered Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4H Club and other activities for the children in the Black neighborhood.”
His mother’s family was located in Danville, VA, and Person County, NC, and decided to stay because she didn’t want to try to find schools for all eight children. Besides, her family was near enough that they could help her if she needed anything while his father was gone. He would come back and forth whenever he had time off.
“The story is really about my family. My father took a factory job up north and my mom decided to stay down south where most of her family was,” Ramsey stated.
Black men during that time rarely received education since they were needed to help the parents on the farm. Most parents were undereducated therefore did not stress their child to attend school and truancy was not an issue.
Growing up dealing with the circumstances he faced, he still made it work. He is an author, a fine art photographer, a proud father of three successful children, a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, and was honored with having his name on a brick at the Person County Museum of History, just to name a few.
Knowledge is Power!
