The Greenville Eight and Library Discrimination, Then and Now: Book Censorship News, March 6, 2026

The Greenville Public Library (SC), like many libraries in the South during the Jim Crow era, operated separate branches for white users and users of color. While on break from school in Illinois in January 1960, Jesse Jackson returned to his hometown of Greenville and went to the library’s branch for people of color. That branch was tiny, and it did not have the book he needed for his paper. The librarian there told him that she could request the title, but it would take six days for it to arrive–a timeline that would not get the material in time for Jackson’s schoolwork.

Jackson did what seemed natural. He went to the much better-funded and furnished main branch of the library to get the book. But when he arrived, he was told he could not use that library. That was the moment when he knew he had to do something, and he started making plans for when he’d be back in Greenville that summer.

In March of that same year, a group of 20 local Black high schoolers decided they’d had enough of being unable to access the main library, too. They were going to attempt to desegregate the facility. Their attempts were unsuccessful. In a cruel and all-too-common act, officials simply closed the library, thwarting their efforts. A few days later, a group of seven Black students returned to the library. This time, they were arrested for breaking state and city code related to “disorderly conduct.”

When Jesse Jackson returned to Greenville in the summer, he would work with seven other young local students — Dorris Wright, Hattie Smith Wright, Elaine Means, Willie Joe Wright, Benjamin Downs, Margaree Seawright Crosby, and Joan Mattison Daniel—to once again engage in nonviolent action at the Greenville Public Library. The Eight were aided by Reverend James S. Hall Jr., who was not only the President of South Carolina’s chapter of the NAACP but also had supported the students who’d staged the earlier series of library protests.

The Greenville Eight, as the activists would come to be called, went to the library on the morning of July 16. They were met by police shortly after, who warned them that if they stayed at the main library, they would be arrested. But with the encouragement of Hall, the Eight went back later that day. According to Joan Mattison Daniel, one of the Eight who shared her experiences with American Libraries in 2017, “Some of us got a book, and others browsed the shelves.” The Eight were asked by the librarian to leave, but they did not move or say anything in response.

Police soon arrived. All Eight were arrested and held in jail for a few minutes before a local Black attorney named Donald J. Sampson and Reverend Hall arrived at the police station.

The Greenville Public Library did not see additional such sit-ins following that event. Instead, Donald J. Sampson–the above-named attorney who arrived at the police station following the Greenville Eight’s arrest–filed a lawsuit against the library so that they would have to integrate.

The library elected to close its doors to all patrons in response. During court arguments, when the judge said the library would need to integrate, library officials said they could not comply with the order to integrate because, well, the library wasn’t open anymore. They pointed the finger at the Greenville Eight and the prior groups of Black student activists as causing not only harm to Black residents’ access to the system’s libraries but to the white community’s access, too. The very activists seeking to expand access to community libraries were blamed for the library’s decision to close all access.

By September, local pressure became so overwhelming that Greenville Public Library reopened its doors. By court order, the library also had to integrate.

The Greenville Eight and their fellow student activists were successful in their nonviolent protests.

Just one year later, the Tougaloo Nine would hold a read-in at a Jackson, Mississippi, public library’s main branch. It, too, was a white-only facility; those students, too, were seeking books unavailable at the Black library branch that they needed for an assignment. The Tougaloo Nine would successfully spearhead integration across Mississippi libraries.

Beyond the obvious connections between the Greenville Eight and Tougaloo Nine stories, something else stands out. In both situations, Black students attempting to educate themselves and acquire resources to do so faced hurdles. Then, as now, it’s not about whether materials can be acquired in some way; any person can get what they want with the right amount of money, the right amount of time, or the right skin color or appearance that aligns with society’s invented gender roles. The public library, though, exists to remove those barriers as much as possible, which is why it belongs to the public and not private interests or entities.

Again and again, though, we see where and how the racism that denied access to marginalized people in libraries continues today. We also now more clearly see where gender and sexuality come into play, too. It wasn’t not there before. It’s just even more evident now.

Sundown towns–communities where Black people are put on notice not to be within city limits after sundown or face consequences–were rampant in the decades prior to and following the Civil Rights movement. Despite the common belief that de facto and de jure segregation occurred primarily in the South, sundown towns are a reminder that such racism was not only widespread but also as bad, if not worse, in northern states. It’s interesting to look at where sundown towns existed and note that while the way they operated previously isn’t precisely the same, many still actively discriminate against anything outside the white ideal. You could overlay a map of book bans or communities with active extremist groups targeting people of color and queer people via education and/or libraries and see that many of them were (and still are) sundown towns. See, for example, Georgia’s Forsyth County.

It should come then as little surprise that a place like Greenville, whose library’s history is intricately intertwined with racism, continues to be a flashpoint in today’s so-called “culture wars”–a milquetoast term describing the cruel racism and homophobia being perpetrated by those seeking book bans, implementing bathroom codes and associated bounties, crying about “fairness in women’s sports,” and insisting that discussion of race is harmful and racist against white people. The Greenville Public Library was among the first public libraries this decade to have its board pass a policy that outright bans any and all “trans” books for those under the age of 18. This is full-throated discrimination cloaked beneath terminology that’s been play-tested and refined for years. It is both the first step and one of the final steps in outright banning LGBTQ+ people from the library. If books that reflect their experiences are banned, how long is it until the people those books represent are targeted, too?

It’s not a game of semantics, nor is it an imagined scenario. A trans person was confronted by a cop at the Tucker-Reid Branch of the DeKalb County Public Library (GA) for using the women’s bathroom–something another person complained about.

Communities like Greenville and elsewhere continue to perpetrate harm to the most marginalized communities thanks to tradition and thanks to historical precedent. At the micro level, slavery’s legacy is in prison censorship; the weaknesses of Reconstruction and integration, censorship of public goods and education. Like the precedent set by the Greenville Eight, the ban on “trans” books in the Greenville Public Library is making its way through the court system. This time, it’s the state’s ACLU, alongside four brave young library users and their parents.

None of this is to say libraries aren’t inclusive, nor that they haven’t taken tremendous steps over the last century to serve the whole community better. Indeed, it’s the commitment to reaching the needs of marginalized community members, including people of color and queer people–as well as young people, period–that has made them targets by the far right. Pushing back against white supremacy through strong library policies, diverse collections, and continued recruitment, training, promotion, and support of library workers from marginalized backgrounds is essential. It’s proactive, more than reactive.

But libraries can only improve themselves and their role as places of civic engagement and democracy by understanding their own history of perpetrating harm. Libraries can only better themselves and their role as places of civic engagement and democracy by understanding that all of the attacks they’ve been enduring during the last several years didn’t come out of nowhere–they have been there all along, and they reflect the work that was never truly achieved through surface-level commitments to integration and civil rights.

There are many additional resources worth reading on public libraries and discrimination. An excellent work of nonfiction for those looking to start or continue their learning journey is Cheryl Knott’s Not Free, Not for All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow.

Public libraries are not, nor have they ever been, neutral spaces.

Book Censorship News: March 6, 2026

• Wyoming’s bill proposal that would have essentially destroyed YA sections in libraries has been killed. Yes, other states have other horrific bills–many with updates you’ll see below–but right now, this is worth celebrating. Advocacy and pressure work.
• Thanks to one woman, Twin Falls Public Schools (ID) are being forced to waste a lot of time and money to review 95 challenged books. Usual suspects, both the complainer and the titles seeing complaints.
• A Hennepin County Library (MN) patron began noticing more and more diverse books popping up on discard carts and started asking questions. This piece talks about what they learned about weeding at the library, as well as where and how inclusive collections are developed for the library. I do think much of this is professional weeding, but some of the other things in here are odd. Why is a 2023 picture book already weeded? The comment about focusing on diverse collections with “extra” budget is also weird and feels out of context.
• Former Lafayette Public Library Board President Robert Judge (LA) is claiming religious discrimination against Parish Councilman AB Rubin. Judge was instrumental in fomenting bigotry on the board.
• Having solved every issue in the state, Arizona republicans want to ban children from drag performances.
• “Three Florida parents continued their legal fight against the Florida State Board of Education in the 11th Circuit on Friday, arguing the state’s library book removal policy violates the First Amendment’s ban on viewpoint discrimination. Nancy Tray, Anne Watts Tressler and Stephana Ferrellsuedthe Florida Department of Education in June 2024 overHB 1069, which set up a system for parents to petition for the removal of objectionable books in school. The parents argued the law does not give them a way to contest the book removals.” Here’s an update on the arguments in another book ban case from Florida at the 11th Circuit.
• The Jackson-Madison County Library Board (TN) moved 37 books from the YA section to the adult section of the library, following complaints. They’ve now also instituted parental permission forms. Teens can drive to the library by themselves, but they cannot go into the adult fiction or nonfiction sections without permission. Make it make sense. Here’s a key suggestion from the book banners: “They proposed solutions such as building walls around the 18 and up literature section and requiring ID checks or keypad entry to access it.”
• Formerly incarcerated Arkansas people talk about how books were instrumental in reshaping their lives.
• The District Media Specialist in Alachua County, Florida, talks about how the new bill moving through Florida legislature could have an even more detrimental effect on book banning.
• Last week’s roundup included a story about LGBTQ+ books being targeted in the New Castle Public Library (PA). This week, the library is closed until further notice. It has since been reopened and wouldn’t you know, the issue was exactly as guessed–real clever for charges of the library being Epstein Island coming from the party protecting Epstein and his associates.
• White Oak Independent School District (TX) has banned The Perks of Being a Wallflower from school students.
• One parent wants Cuyahoga County Public Library (OH) to relocate a book about reproduction written for 3-6 year olds from the section of the library with books for 3-6 year olds.
• Laramie County School District 1 (WY) refused to ban The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian because it is not “sexually explicit.” This is a big deal and could 1. continue the battle to ban the book and 2. be the real push against this nonsense in the state, which wants to ban such books statewide through new legislation.
• Arkansas’s state library board, which was appointed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is asking the state department of education to write library policies. The state library board is also releasing funds to libraries now, but with more reporting requirements to continue being funded.
• Idaho, despite two lawsuits over its draconian book ban bill, wants to make the bill even worse two years later. Among the changes? Rewriting the definition of “obscenity” to undercut the actual definition per the Miller Test.
• Remember OnShelf by BookmarkED, the software created by a person who advocated for the passage of Texas’s school book ban bills so he could profit (see here and here)? Here’s new reporting from Fast Company on where BookmarkED is right now.
• This story is paywalled, but it talks about how the Harford School District’s (MD) court battle over banning Flamer–which the state intervened in because banning books is against the law–is going to be going on for a while.
• Also paywalled it a story about Carroll School District (also MD) and how their school collection development policy is making librarians nervous and worried. Wish I could tell you more, but I don’t have access to this story.
• A bill proposed in Oklahoma would be such a cumbersome burden on public and public character schools, as it would require every school to submit a full list of all available print and digital books district wide to the state. This includes the libraries and classrooms. It’s “meant” to snoop out books that are against the law. Books that do not exist in those places, despite right-wing insistence. The biggest hurdle here? The deadline is October, which would require all of these people to shutter access to materials and work over the summer to meet the arbitrary timeline.
• The Escambia, Florida, administrator has decided to advocate for a new public library director with no librarianship background and who is married to a person who has run republican campaigns before. This decision overrides the county board’s choice for the role. Recall that the Escambia County School District is facing two lawsuits over book banning and that that book banning agenda has indeed made its way into the public library.
• New South Wales (Australia) is looking to develop a law that would protect libraries from censorship.
• The Louis Riel School Division (Winnipeg, Canada) pulled a book from library shelves over Palestinian imagery, bucking protocol and procedure. The complaint came from someone who works in the library and is not Palestinian.
• The Marshall Project is offering a workshop to help teach you about prison book censorship, as well as how to learn what’s happening in the prisons near you. All of the info, including date, time, and how to sign up, is available here.
• The Rutherford County Library Alliance (TN) is encouraging anyone in the county to show up to the next library board meeting, to be held later this month. This library has a board that’s not only enforcing the removal of books, per demands from the Tennessee Secretary of State, but it’s been revealed how much information certain board members want about the public’s use of books they deem “inappropriate.”
• Mohave County Library (AZ) received a bunch of book donations, which the county supervisors deemed “inappropriate.” Here’s the list of books they banned from being included in the public library.

Let’s end on some good news. The American Library Association’s staff now have access to a union–this is huge and an opportunity for the staff, who have weathered numerous cuts and changes over the last couple of years.