{"id":63203,"date":"2022-02-22T20:37:33","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T20:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63203"},"modified":"2022-02-24T16:39:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:39:26","slug":"running-from-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63203","title":{"rendered":"Running from Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Running from Race<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

On Wisconsin<\/a>
\nWisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (alumni and friends of the University of Wisconsin, Madison)
\n2021-03-01<\/p>\n

Harvey Long<\/strong><\/a> MA\u201916, Librarian, Assistant Professor
\nNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, North Carolina<\/em><\/p>\n

Ethelene Whitmire<\/strong><\/a>, Professor
\nDepartments of Afro-American Studies; German, Nordic, and Slavic; andGender & Women\u2019s Studies
\nUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Louise Butler Walker as a young Chicagoan: while she was growing up and as a UW<\/a> student, she identified as Black. Later in her career, facing the limitations Black Americans experienced, she began to pass as white<\/a>. COURTESY OF THE AUTHORS<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Librarian Louise Butler Walker \u201935 took desperate measures to survive in a racist society.<\/em><\/p>\n

During the Great Depression<\/a>, Louise Butler Walker \u201935 completed her bachelor\u2019s in French and earned a library diploma from what is now UW\u2013Madison\u2019s<\/a> Information School. Walker had been an outstanding student, graduating Phi Beta Kappa<\/a>, and completed a prestigious internship at the American Library Association<\/a> (ALA) headquarters in Chicago<\/a>. The school\u2019s career placement office said her assets were her \u201cbrilliant mind\u201d and \u201cexcellent academic background.\u201d Her limitations, they said, were \u201cracial (she is a mulatto<\/a>).\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>
As a local librarian, Walker (at right in photo) became a prominent figure in Fort Atkinson<\/a>. COURTESY OF THE AUTHORS<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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<\/a> to work as a librarian in rural Wisconsin<\/a>. Her story reveals the extraordinary pressures that African Americans faced…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Librarian Louise Butler Walker \u201935 took desperate measures to survive in a racist society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8,6462,20],"tags":[33120,33113,3027,33132,33122,33131,14753,33114,33134,33109,5488,33112,33118,33133,33111,4720,5661,33110],"class_list":["post-63203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-ala","tag-american-library-association","tag-chicago","tag-cyrus-michael-walker","tag-cyrus-weber-walker","tag-cyrus-mike-michael-walker","tag-ethelene-whitmire","tag-fort-atkinson","tag-harvey-d-long","tag-harvey-long","tag-illinois","tag-louise-butler-walker","tag-louise-walker","tag-mike-walker","tag-on-wisconsin","tag-university-of-wisconsin","tag-wisconsin","tag-wisconsin-foundation-and-alumni-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63203"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63235,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63203\/revisions\/63235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}