Arts & Entertainment
Documentary Explores Historic Struggles, Lasting Impact of Black Librarians in America
Rodney Freeman stumbled into the field of library sciences by happenstance. His sights were originally set on law school, but after taking a job at a public library in Kankakee, he found his true passion: helping people access information and positively engaging with his community.
Fewer than 7% of librarians in the U.S. are Black.
To spotlight the lesser-known contributions of Black librarians, Freeman produced the forthcoming documentary “Are You a Librarian? The Untold Story of Librarians.”
It connects the history of public libraries, civil rights and literacy to the current political attacks on the public library system.
The public library has always been a political, and oftentimes revolutionary, space. One of the first civil rights sit-ins was at a public library in Alexandria, Virginia, resulting in five Black men being arrested for asking to sign up for a library card.
“Black librarians have been using libraries to get out information, to make sure that we vote and as a place to congregate,” Freeman said. “At one point, they weren’t able to go to White libraries; they weren’t able to access information; there were laws saying they could not read and write, so these libraries are very important.”
Another trailblazer named in the documentary is civil rights activist Annie Lou McPheeters, who served as a librarian to a young, elementary-school aged Martin Luther King Jr. In an oral history interview from the Georgia State University Library digital collections, McPheeters recalls King taking an interest in books about Mahatma Gandhi — the figure he would later adopt the practice of nonviolence from.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the federal agency that provides funding to museums and libraries across the country.
State laws outlining book bans and censorship have also risen sharply under the Trump administration. The EveryLibrary Institute recently published a report titled “Codifying Censorship or Reclaiming Rights: The State-by-State 2025 Legislative Landscape for Libraries,” analyzing 130 bills introduced this year that target “libraries, librarians and the public’s right to read.”
Some of the legislative proposals include: withholding funding from public libraries that don’t meet demands of censoring or restricting content; creating new definitions related to obscenity and/or harm to minors; and prohibiting drag queen story hours, among other restrictions.
Sophia Sotilleo, an executive board member at the American Library Association, thinks the impact of these laws could be great.
“It takes away the ability of librarians and the community to engage in the way that they know how and the way that they would like to,” said Sotilleo, who serves as the dean of the library at Bowie State University. “It’s so important for us to have our own spaces as librarians of color to get together and support one another.”
