Ruth Brown (librarian)
Ruth Winifred Brown (July 26, 1891 – September 10, 1975) was an American librarian, best known for her dismissal from service for civil rights activities in the late 1940s.
[4] She lived with her parents and brother Merrit in Kansas until the family moved to California where Brown went to high school.
Brown also attended the School of Library Service of Columbia University during summers, where she worked with Helen E. Haines and Ernestine Rose (librarian), both of which were fierce supporters of intellectual freedom.
[7] During her presidential year, she gave a speech which advised librarians to "reduce to a minimum worry about lost books" and to encourage the many who did not "make use of their right to library service".
[9] In 1946, after observing how African-American soldiers fought in the army for rights they were denied at home, Brown helped established the Committee on the Practice of Democracy (COPD) in Bartlesville.
[12] The battle between the American Legion and librarian Ruth W. Brown over materials in the Bartlesville Public Library (BPL) revealed the racial tensions in 1950s Oklahoma and the use of McCarthyist tactics to counter the forces of integration.
[21] The picture showed a pile of copies of The Nation and The New Republic (magazines that were now being questioned but which had been subscribed to by the library for years) with two books on top.
[22] Miss Brown is nationally recognized as the first librarian to receive assistance from the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the American Library Association.
The campaign to fire her was almost complete and though "everyone knows what they are really fighting" as Brown later commented to a friend, her opponents chose the McCarthy era scare tactics as a more viable way to rid the city of her progressive views on racial equality.
[23] When asked about having the subversive materials (New Republic, The Nation, Soviet Russia Today) in the library she responded that they were three of seventy-five publications to which she subscribed.
[23][3] Allegations of subversive Communist activity centered on threatening the "American way of life", as it was put by one of her antagonists, the postmaster and library board chairman E. R.
[24] Bartlesville's elite resorted to censorship and suppression to silence the proponents of racial justice and equality and rid the library of supposedly subversive material.
[12] A group of supporters, calling themselves the Friends of Miss Brown, tried to pursue her cause in court but were unsuccessful due to a lack of constitutional standing.
The Oklahoma Library Association as well as the ALA and the ACLU all protested the attack on intellectual freedom and Bartlesville continued to be scrutinized on a national level.
[12] This attention surprised and embarrassed the town which wished to go back to the way things were and end the spotlight on Bartlesville.
The elder, Mildred "Holly" Holliday, ran away from her abusive foster parents when she was eighteen and went back to live with Brown.
[27] The events in Columbia Pictures' 1956 film Storm Center were largely fictional, but the character played by Bette Davis was based on Ruth Brown and her struggle with the county commission over communist literature.
