While staying at the YWCA, she applied to be a librarian at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, working under the supervision of Ernestine Rose.

Du Bois, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, Charles S. Johnson, Hubert Thomas Delany, and Langston Hughes, the dinner was one of the coalescing events of the Harlem Renaissance.

[8][10][11][12] Anderson and Du Bois co-founded the Krigwa Players (later Negro Experimental Theatre), a Black theater company that originally performed in the library's basement.

The Krigwa Players disbanded, and Anderson created the Harlem Experimental Theatre with Dorothy Peterson and Harold Jackman.

[9] On April 10, 1926, Anderson married the Howard University and Columbia Law School grad William T. Andrews, from Sumter, South Carolina.

[3][9] She was the first minority to climb the ranks and become a supervising librarian at the New York Public Library, at the 115th Street ranch in 1938, and her struggle to break the color barrier has earned her numerous accolades.

The Women's Service League awarded Anderson a medal for being the first woman of color to serve as the head of a New York library branch.

[13] She started her position as a full-time clerk in 1923 under the leadership of Ernestine Rose, who wanted to make sure the community was served by librarians that reflected their diversity.

In 1948, Anderson began working at the Washington Heights branch with the title of Supervising Librarian, and while there, she created a community outreach program called "Family Night at the Library.

"[13] The program focused on African, Caribbean, Latin American, Southeast Asian, and African-American culture, politics, and history.