The dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown
Subtitle: civil rights, censorship, and the American library
By: by Louise S. Robbins.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Norman
Language: eng
Number of pages: 237
Subjects: Brown, Ruth Winifred; Bartlesville Public Library (Bartlesville, Okla.) -- History -- 20th century; African Americans and libraries -- Oklahoma -- Bartlesville -- History -- 20th century; Libraries and communism -- Oklahoma -- Bartlesville -- History -- 20th century; Civil rights workers -- Employment -- Oklahoma -- Bartlesville -- History -- 20th century; Public librarians -- Employment -- Oklahoma -- Bartlesville -- History -- 20th century; Public libraries -- Censorship -- Oklahoma -- Bartlesville -- History -- 20th century
Description: In 1950 Ruth W. Brown, librarian at the Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Public Library, was summarily dismissed from her job after thirty years of exemplary service, ostensibly because she had circulated subversive materials. In truth, however, Brown was fired because she had become active in promoting racial equality and had helped form a group affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality. This episode in a small Oklahoma town almost a half-century ago is more than a disturbing local event. It exemplifies the McCarthy era, foregrounding those who labored for racial justice, sometimes at great cost, before the civil rights movement. In addition, it reveals a masking of concerns that led even Brown's allies to obscure the cause of racial integration for which she fought. Relevant today, Ruth Brown's story helps us understand the matrix of personal, community, state, and national forces that can lead to censorship, intolerance, and the suppression of individual rights. (Inspiration for the 1956 Bette Davis film Storm Center.)
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [211]-222) and index.