Running from Race |
On Wisconsin
Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (alumni and friends of the University of Wisconsin, Madison)
2021-03-01
Harvey Long MA’16, Librarian, Assistant Professor
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, North Carolina
Ethelene Whitmire, Professor
Departments of Afro-American Studies; German, Nordic, and Slavic; andGender & Women’s Studies
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Librarian Louise Butler Walker ’35 took desperate measures to survive in a racist society.
During the Great Depression, Louise Butler Walker ’35 completed her bachelor’s in French and earned a library diploma from what is now UW–Madison’s Information School. Walker had been an outstanding student, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and completed a prestigious internship at the American Library Association (ALA) headquarters in Chicago. The school’s career placement office said her assets were her “brilliant mind” and “excellent academic background.” Her limitations, they said, were “racial (she is a mulatto).”

Although Walker was not privy to the egregious behind-the-scenes machinations and handwringing about her being Black, she knew that her race was detrimental to her career, so she eventually passed as white to work as a librarian in rural Wisconsin. Her story reveals the extraordinary pressures that African Americans faced…
Read the entire article here.
Tags: ALA, American Library Association, Chicago, Cyrus Michael Walker, Cyrus Weber Walker, Cyrus “Mike” Michael Walker, Ethelene Whitmire, Fort Atkinson, Harvey D. Long, Harvey Long, Illinois, Louise Butler Walker, Louise Walker, Mike Walker, On Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association