On a chilly April afternoon in , Lynchburg's leading citizens and hundreds of others gathered next to a bunting-and-balloon-draped building as the local high school band piped out the national anthem and politicians talked the talk. The black high school's concert band struck up a few tunes and the mayor cut the ribbon with oversized scissors.
When it was over, the crowds pushed forward for the prize of the day—a public library card. In the next four hours, the new library's users checked out books. In those moments, in a scene replayed in many Southern towns, Lynchburg's racial divide began to close. Lynchburg this year celebrated its fortieth anniversary of that day, the beginning of its public library. In many ways the growth of the library has reflected the growth of the city. The library indeed had humble beginnings: eight thousand square feet on the third floor of a six-floor former warehouse that mostly housed the city's maintenance department and was located behind the businesses facing the one-way Main Street.
It was hard to find. With room for seventy-five people, it was staffed by nine employees, four of them professionally-trained librarians, including a part-time reference librarian. But with a startup collection of 35, books, it didn't take long before it was one of the big hits of the city, packed on afternoons by youngsters doing homework assignments. In its first eight months, the library circulated , books.
What took Lynchburg so long? Neighboring Bedford has had a library for more than a hundred years, Roanoke and Charlottesville for more than eighty. Actually, efforts to start a public library in Lynchburg date back to when a literature and library company was incorporated by the state legislature and fizzled.
It was nearly years before Lynchburg joined the public library fraternity. Today's attractive facilities reflect a city committed to libraries. The George M. Blacks were forbidden to even enter the building. Mary Frances Jones was eccentric, to say the least, arranging books in the library by color and leaving a note on the door that the library was closed when she needed to take a social junket for the weekend.
