Hidden Gems in Black History: The First Black Public Library Director

In addition to being a prominent figure in American civic life, education, and religion, Thomas Fountain Blue made history as the first African American to serve as public library director. Henry Ann Crawley Blue and her carpenter father, Noah, welcomed their son, Blue, into the world on March 6, 1866, in Farmville, Virginia. Alice Blue and Charles Blue were their other children. From 1885 until his graduation in 1888, Blue was a student at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. He attended Virginia Union University, then known as Richmond Theological Seminary, in Richmond, Virginia, in 1894 and graduated in 1898 with a Bachelor of Divinity. After a week, when the Spanish-American War broke out due to the USS Maine’s sinking off the Cuban coast, Blue enlisted in the Sixth Virginia Volunteers unit, which consisted of African American troops. He was stationed at Tennessee’s Camp Poland and Georgia’s Camp Haskell. Western Branch Library As the first Carnegie Library in the US to employ only African Americans to serve African American consumers, Blue was chosen to head the Western Branch Library of the Louisville Free Public Library in 1905. The library was located on South 10th and Chestnut Street. Upon completion, the library...