INC NEWS - Blind Boy Fuller plaque: Reopening of Stanford Warren Library (Sept 7 at 9AM)

[John Schelp]

Blind Boy Fuller lived, performed and was buried in
Hayti. The father of the Piedmont Blues was recently
inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

The North Carolina Blues Historic Marker committee
will present the Hall of Fame plaque to the Stanford
Warren library, during the library's grand reopening
ceremony on Thursday, Sept 7. The plaque will then go
on public display in the renovated library. 

The marker committee (Gaile Welker, Darrell Stover,
Glenn Hinson, Jim Walton, and John Schelp) has also
completed these efforts...

* State highway marker outside library (for "Bull City
Blues"), 

* City marker on the American Tobacco Trail (for Blind
Boy Fuller), 

* Fuller marker in Wadesboro, NC (the blues-man's home
town). 

Please join us at Stanford Warren on Thursday at 9AM.
More info about this week's event is below.

More about Blind Boy Fuller...
http://members.aol.com/Trucknlittlemama/bbfhms.htm 

take care,
John

****

You are invited...

Thursday, September 7 at 9:00 AM

Stanford L. Warren Branch Library
1201 Fayetteville Street, Durham
Free & open to the public
 
Durham County Library will reopen Stanford L. Warren
Branch Library and commemorate the 90th anniversary of
the Durham Colored Library with a celebration on
September 7.

The facility is reopening after an expansion and
transformation that was described as "restoration,
renovation, renewal."  The entire community is invited
to the free celebration, which will mark the "rebirth"
of the facility and venerate the founders of the
Durham Colored Library and all who ensured library
services for blacks (benefactors, volunteers and
staff) throughout the 1900s.
 
The renovation and expansion of the library included a
reconfiguration of the space that moved all of the
collections and services to the upper floor and
brought the Selena Warren Wheeler Collection into the
public area from closed stacks.  The Wheeler
Collection is an extensive compilation of black
literature, culture and history that is recognized as
one of the best collections in the South...
  
Stanford L. Warren Library, which is on the National
Register of Historic Places, opened Jan. 17, 1940. 
The board of the Durham Colored Library Association,
which operated the Durham Colored Library (the second
black library in North Carolina) voted to name the new
building for its benefactor, Dr. Warren, who gave
$4,000 to purchase the land on which the facility
stands. 
 
The Durham Colored Library sprang from a library
organized by Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore in a borrowed
room at the original location of the White Rock
Baptist Church in 1913.  In 1916, it moved to a
building owned by John Merrick, a friend and business
partner of Moore's, on the corner of Fayetteville and
Pettigrew streets.  Soon after, the Library erected a
small building and hired Hattie B. Wooten as its first
library director. 

The Durham Colored Library opened Aug. 14, 1916.  In
March 1939, the board resolved to borrow $25,000 from
North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. to build a
new Library.  Warren's gift secured the site.  The
annex to the building was built in 1949-1950. 

Stanford L. Warren Library merged with the Durham
County Library system in 1966.  In 1968, the facility
was renovated, with the construction of a new
entrance.  Another renovation occurred in 1984.
 
Throughout the years, the directors of the Durham
Colored Library/Stanford L. Warren Public Library,
including Wooten, Selena Warren Wheeler and Ray
Nichols "Onnie" Moore, created a vibrant library and
were instrumental in raising expectations for quality
library services that would reach every citizen in
Durham County.  After the merger, Mrs. Moore became
assistant director of the Durham City-County Public
Library and served in that role until her death in
1975.

****