On June 25th at the Dumas Center auditorium located at 108 Henry Street NW in Roanoke, VA, the Gainsboro Branch Library hosted Defiant Libraries: Virginia Lee and the Secrets Kept by Good Bookladies, a lecture and book event honoring the legacy of librarian Virginia Lee. A lecture by Laura Helton, assistant professor at the University of Delaware and author of Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History, highlighted Virginia Lee’s clandestine fight against access restrictions on Black readers and Black literacy during Segregation in Roanoke.
Following Helton’s lecture, a panel discussion was held and moderated by Nelson Harris, with special guests Dr. Curtis Reeves, Jr., Dr. lvin and Virginia Schexnider, family of Virginia Lee, and Carla Lewis, former librarian of the Gainsboro Branch Library.
Exclusive event book sales will be by Book No Further.
This is one interesting lecture you will not want to miss, so SAVE THE DATE!!