The Auburn Avenue Research Library will host researcher Dr. Aisha M. Johnson-Jones as she lectures on her publication The African American Struggle For Library Equality: The Untold Story of the Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program.

The African American Struggle for Library Equality is the first comprehensive history of the Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program to be published. The book reveals a new understanding of library practices of the early 20th century. Through original research and use of existing literature, Aisha Johnson Jones exposes historic library practices that discriminated against blacks, and the necessary remedies the Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program implemented to cure this injustice, which ultimately influenced other philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates (the Gates Foundation has a library program) as well as organizations like the American Library Association.

Dr. Aisha Johnson-Jones is an educator and revelator of Southern intellectual history, and an advocate for untold stories. She is committed to archival research, the production and professional development of archivists and staff, and redefining the scholar. With a Ph.D. and Master’s in Library and Information Studies (LIS), Johnson-Jones stands on a soapbox for unveiling the history of underrepresented