Ruby G. Woodson - Breaking Racial Barrier at Sarasota Library

Breaking Racial Barrier At Sarasota Library

In 1957, while she was on a vacation in her hometown of Sarasota and researching materials for completion of her master’s degree, Ruby Woodson was refused entry to the library in Sarasota. She made a formal objection to her treatment that she took to city and county government officials. Her efforts led to the elimination of racial barriers to community services paid for by the taxation of all residents. Soon the vestiges of segregation began to fall and all residents were granted access to the library.

Read more about this topic:  Ruby G. Woodson

Famous quotes containing the words breaking, racial, barrier and/or library:

    Is whispering nothing?
    Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
    Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
    Of laughter with a sigh?—a note infallible
    Of breaking honesty.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Most young black females learn to be suspicious and critical of feminist thinking long before they have any clear understanding of its theory and politics.... Without rigorously engaging feminist thought, they insist that racial separatism works best. This attitude is dangerous. It not only erases the reality of common female experience as a basis for academic study; it also constructs a framework in which differences cannot be examined comparatively.
    bell hooks (b. c. 1955)

    Whatever may be our just grievances in the southern states, it is fitting that we acknowledge that, considering their poverty and past relationship to the Negro race, they have done remarkably well for the cause of education among us. That the whole South should commit itself to the principle that the colored people have a right to be educated is an immense acquisition to the cause of popular education.
    —Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)

    Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)