“Get Our Feet Wet and Hands Dirty”: Black Community‐Based Librarianship and the Fight Against Information Poverty, 1940‐1975

Abstract

Focusing on information services to marginalized urban communities in the United States between 1940 and 1975, this paper argues that African American librarians played foundational roles in early community‐based librarianship (CBL) initiatives. In doing so, Black librarians skillfully and resourcefully fought information poverty, pushed for social and political equality, and promoted their communities’ well‐being through proactive information provision. By fighting the systemic racism throttling inner‐city Black communities, their labors constituted a seminal contribution to the post‐World War II United States Freedom Struggle. Theirs was a specifically Black CBL. Underpinned by the theoretical work of Elfreda Chatman, this heretofore hidden history offers fruitful lessons for current library and information science practice. It therefore aligns with the annual meeting theme, “Translating Information Research into Practice, Policy, and Action,” particularly its emphasis on “creating effective models of information provision, creating empathetic information services” and on “understanding the power of information to develop human happiness, equality, and wellbeing.”