(Photo: Tribune News Service)
In the Jim Crow era, racial segregation shamefully extended into many of America’s public libraries. Pearl Thompson experienced this herself in 1942. She went to the public library of Raleigh, North Carolina to check out a particular book. The library staff refused to issue her a library card because she was black. Thompson was permitted to read the book on site, but only down in the basement.
Now that injustice is being rectified. In a special ceremony at the Cameron Village Regional Library of the Wake County Public Libraries, Thompson was granted her library card. The News & Observer reports:
Ann Burlingame, deputy director of Wake County Public Libraries, said she was thrilled when Deborah Thompson reached out about getting a library card for her mother.
“I just feel like this woman was denied access to a library and a book,” Burlingame said. “I just wanted the opportunity to rectify that, not just for her but for us as the library system.”
Deborah Thompson said her mother loves to learn.
“That’s the legacy that she leaves,” she said.
Pearl Thompson could have spent the past seven decades being angry about what happened to her at the Olivia Raney Library, which now serves as a local history library.
But that’s not her style.
“I don’t hold any kind of hate in my heart, because that doesn’t do it,” she said. “That doesn’t get you there.”
-via Huffington Post