The Black Library

Prior calls for the Black library

The Burling Library Takeover was not the first time CBS requested the creation of the Black Library. In 1968, CBS proposed that Student Government Association (SGA) provide $400 (adjusted for inflation, the sum would be about $3,600 in 2024) for creating a Black Library as well as a Black student newspaper.

This appeal was not accepted at the time, and neither were the other 8 appeals to increase racial justice on campus that CBS put forth. CBS did not relent on their position and made more attempts to create a Black Library

Aftermath of the Takeover

While the demands from the Takeover were more or less formally approved by campus administration, the fruition of the demands were far slower. At first, the library moved a few volumes of books related to Black Studies to a specific shelf in the Library. This was clearly not what the CBS had in mind, but head librarian, Henry Alden, felt that recataloging and moving the books would be a very expensive and labor-intensive process. Alden was quoted in the February 18th edition of the Scarlet & Black that it would cost $10,000 (adjusted for inflation, the sum would be about $75,310 in 2024) to reorganize and recatalog the existing items that would be appropriate for the Black Library. Lawerence Wright, the CBS president, responded in an interview that such a step would not cost the library anything as CBS members would complete the work. This statement shows that the librarians at Burling likely were not able to demonstrate to CBS members, as well as other patrons, that the process of creating a new library section requires far more “back-end”, highly-skilled, and unseen workflows than simply moving books from one shelf to another. Even moving a few books would have required a close and manual editing of all the catalogs, assigning new metadata to the book, and documenting the change, which is something that would take at least a few hours if the moved books were not displacing other books. Moving hundreds of volumes from their old locations to a new location that displaced other books would take a librarian several months, if not longer, to properly complete in modern times with digital catalogs.

The Second Takeover and Further Actions

By February of 1972, CBS was frustrated by the slow process of creating the Black Library, as well as the inaction their other demands. This frustration, mixed with the misunderstanding of the labor required to properly re-catalog books, lead to CBS members to take action again. As Alan Wheat ‘72 stated “The implication we got from all (the meetings) was that there was a manpower shortage … “that they needed some help in the establishment and relocation of this material.” According to the Scarlet & Black published on February 18th, 1972, head librarian Henry Alden tried to tell students that it was “impossible for inexperienced students to catalog the collection”, and CBS president Lawerence Wright responded with “I hate to overstep his expertise, but we feel that we might be intelligent enough to effectively catalog those holdings”. With this mindset, CBS members and Professor Virginius Thornton took over the Twentieth Century Room at 10 pm on Thursday, February 17th. Using the library’s printed bibliographies for “Afro-American and African Studies” books, students went around the library and moved books of interest from their usual locations to the Twentieth Century Room, and removed the existing volumes in the room.

The demonstration ended when Dean Wally Walker arrived. He informed the students that this action violated “federal laws which forces immediate termination of U.S. Office of Education grants and National Defense Loans to students involved in ‘the seizure of property under the control of an institution of higher education to require or prevent the the availability of certain curriculum or to prevent the faculty, administrative officials or students of such institution from engaging in their duties or pursuing their studies at such institution” (Scarlet & Black 2/18/1972). Walker told students they must leave in 5 minutes. The students stayed for another 4 minutes and 30 seconds before leaving.

This did not deter CBS from further demonstrations. Later that same month, CBS students staged a more subtle demonstration in library. Between the hours of 10 and 11 pm on February 29th, 1972, around 40 students checked out over 800 books relevant to Black studies. Librarian Henry Alden reported to Dean Wally Walker that the students did not violate any library rules in this demonstration, but did keep the library unusually bus.

Moving forward

In response to CBS’s activism, more concrete measures were taken to address the Black Library’s creation. First, a working group was created within CBS specifically tasked with overseeing the Black Library. Russel McGregor ‘73 was a member of this group and later became the president of CBS. Patricia Swansey ‘74 was also part of this group and communicated with President Legget about the Black Library.

President Leggett responded to these demonstrations and released a list of recommendations for the Black Library

Mary Gae Wylie, a reference librarian at Burling, was assigned to managing the creation of the Black library. She worked closely with CBS to build the library and expand the collection.

By the late 1970’s, the Black Library became a fully-fledged section of the library in the Twentieth Century Room. Besides housing the library’s Black Studies collection, the area became an event space and hosted guests such as poet George Barlow, who is now a professor at Grinnell College.

Black Martyr’s Weekend schedules also started to feature the Black Library as a location for some of its events.

Burling Renovations

In 1982, Burling underwent a significant renovations. The Twentieth Century Room was removed, and the offices used by College administration were relocated to other buildings on campus. The Black Library found a new home on the second floor of Burling, where it remains today. In the past 40 years, the Black Library remained a space for Black scholarship and events, and even displayed art.

Commemoration

Over the years, later generations of Grinnell Students commemorated the Takeover of 1971. In 1996, student commemorated the 25 year anniversary of the Takeover with a poetry reading. In 2006, CBS held an event commemorating the1971 takeover of Burling Library. Fifty-five students with candles, representing the fifty-five students who took over Burling in 1971, marched from the Black Culture Center (BCC) to Burling. Once at Burling, the group read the Black Manifesto, enjoyed the Young, Gifted, and Black Gospel Choir’s performance, held a poetry reading, and discussed the ways the Burling Takeover changed Grinnell.

In 2009, students Latona Giwa ‘09 and Courtney Moore ‘11 staged a site-specific dance event in and around the Black Library. Performers based their dance on the history of the Black Library and passed out copies of the Black Manifesto.

In 2024, librarians created a poster exhibit about the takeover and the Black library to inform patrons of the library about its history.