Virginia Lacy Jones (June 25, 1912 – December 3, 1984) was an American librarian who throughout her 50-year career in the field pushed for the integration of public and academic libraries. She was one of the first African Americans to earn a PhD in Library Science and became dean of Atlanta University's School of Library Sciences.
Early life
Virginia Lacy was born to Edward and Ellen Lacy in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 25, 1912. She spent much of her childhood in Clarksburg, West Virginia. She recalled that growing up her family was "poor, hardworking, proud, and ambitious." She said that books and reading were always a part of her home life. She and her mother made frequent trips to the public library in Clarksburg, which was not segregated. In 1927, Jones moved to St. Louis, Missouri to live with an aunt and uncle. The move could have facilitated the path to a virtually expense-free college education through the Harris Teachers College as she desperately wanted to further her education, but her family was not able to afford it. She entered Sumner High School, where her uncle taught, and completed her final two years of school in 1929.
It was while in high school that Jones realized the possibility that librarianship would be a part of her future. It was an experience at the St. Louis Public Library that inspired her most. She was researching information for her church's citywide essay contest on "The Values of Attending Sunday School" when she encountered a friendly reference librarian. She remembers that after telling this librarian what she was looking for, the librarian showed her how to use the periodical indexes. Jones recalls, "This experience was a thrilling one for me, and my imagination ran wild at the magic of the St. Louis Public Library, a great storehouse of information, ideas, and inspiration. I thought that to be a librarian like that reference librarian who helped me in the St. Louis Public Library would be the greatest thing in the world."
Education and career
After high school, Jones abandoned the idea of becoming a teacher and instead enrolled at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, the only library school in the South at the time where African-Americans could be trained. There she met Florence Rising Curtis, who would play an integral role in Jones' career. Curtis was the director of the library school and would become a mentor to Jones, who earned a B.S. in Library Science from Hampton in 1933. Later that same year, she found employment in Kentucky as the assistant librarian of Louisville Municipal College, which was the African-American branch of the segregated University of Louisville. She soon realized that a career in librarianship would require an advanced degree, but in order to do so she first had to complete a bachelor's degree in education. Jones returned to the Hampton Institute and earned a B.S. in Social Studies Education in 1935.
During Jones' second tenure at Hampton, Curtis invited Jones, along with other faculty and students, to attend the American Library Association's annual conference in Richmond, Virginia. The Black participants were unable to attend the exhibits or stay in the provided accommodations, and special arrangements had to be made for them to attend the regular meetings. Due to her fair complexion, Jones was able to pass for white, and therefore she could stay at the hotel and view the exhibits. Jones later stated, "I never liked the idea of passing for white, but I did it, nevertheless... I had mixed feelings about doing so... on the other hand, I felt a sense of triumph in outsmarting the blatant and cruel racial discrimination of whites."
At this time, a realization of the importance of training for African-American school librarians began. Florence Curtis proposed the establishment of regional centers to provide summer classes for these librarians and chose Jones to head the program at the Prairie View A&M College in Texas. There courses were taught in reference, book selection, school library administration, and cataloging and classification.