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The Portsmouth (Colored) Community Library served black patrons from 1945 until 1963, when the main library was integrated. The small, one-story brick building was originally located on South Street near Effingham. The land at this site was purchased with donations made by Portsmouth citizens, black and white, and the building was constructed at city expense. Some of the over 10,000 books available for black readers were James Weldon Johnson's Along This Way , Henrietta Buckmaster's Let My People Go , Langston Hughes' The Big Sea , and Carter G. Woodson's Mis-Education of the Negro. In recognition of the historical importance of the structure, the Portsmouth (Colored) Community Library has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the building sits empty and in need of repair in the parking lot of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Portsmouth . The city will move the building and repair the exterior, and the historical society will renovate the building's interior and reopen the library as a museum dedicated to the history of African Americans in Portsmouth. The historical society would like to use your stories when interpreting the history of the library. Were you a patron of the Portsmouth (Colored) Community Library? Do you have your old library card, or photos or memories of the library—or perhaps a long overdue book? Did you visit other segregated libraries in Virginia ? If you are interested in contributing to this research or otherwise supporting the renovation and reopening of Portsmouth 's (Colored) Community Library, please contact Sarah Wilson (757) 392-0312, sbwilson@rockbridge.net .
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