Wiki Education assignment: Literacy and Inclusion edit

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2023 and 17 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SmallChartreuseCat (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Kbelay1.

— Assignment last updated by Kbelay1 (talk) 22:45, 1 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

New sources and additions edit

I've added these new sources:


I've added information from these sources that were already included:

  • Mike Selby - Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South (2019) (print book)
  • David Battles - The History of Public Library Access for African Americans in the South (2008) (print book)
  • Ashawnta Jackson - Freedom Libraries and the Fight for Library Equity (2022)


I've left what was already written almost as is, rewording or reorganizing sentences in a couple places as needed. Here are the main additions I've made, organized by section where they appear:

  • intro: mentioned the work of Karen Cook and the timeframe of summer 1964
  • background: libraries may have been technically desegregated but preserved segregation
  • establishment: context of Freedom Summer, context that public libraries were sites of sit-ins, who the COFO was (what organizations), demographic information about volunteers, the Selma Free Library, what kinds of buildings freedom libraries were in, what other services they offered
  • challenges: lack of clarity around COFO organizational structure, lack of funding and volunteer experience, details about Vicksburg bombing, landlords' reluctance to rent to freedom libraries
  • impact: freedom libraries raising awareness, significant impact in short time period

--SmallChartreuseCat (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2023 (UTC)Reply