L. Zenobia Coleman

Louie Zenobia Coleman (January 21, 1898 – May 3, 1999[1]) was an American librarian who worked for most of her career at Tougaloo College in Mississippi.

[2] In an unpublished manuscript Clarice Campbell, a former faculty member at Tougaloo, recorded an anecdote illustrating the pervasive racism in Jackson at that time.

Campbell, who was White, was asked by Coleman to join her and Julia Bender, a Black assistant librarian, for the latter's 65th birthday dinner, which they had at a local cafeteria, "which was by then in compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964".

Afterward, Campbell invited them to a meeting at Jackson's "White" church, but Bender "demurred, saying she had never gone where she was not wanted and did not propose to court trouble on her 65th birthday".

Campbell concluded, "for the two women it was an experience they would not want to repeat, but in hindsight it could be viewed with amusement and even satisfaction in knowing that they had further cracked the walls of segregation in the house of God.