Gainsboro Branch Library

Roanoke (Ind. City) County · dedicated 2022 · 15 Patton Ave. NW

The Gainsboro Branch Library, founded as a result of local Black activism, was the first public library for African Americans in western Virginia and the second in the state. It opened in the Odd Fellows Hall at 446 Gainsboro Ave. NW in Dec. 1921 and moved here in May 1942. The library became a center of Black intellectual and social life by hosting lectures, conferences, reading clubs, and exhibitions. Librarian Virginia Young Lee, who served from 1928 to 1971, developed a regionally significant collection of Black literature, history books, and ephemera. Defying city officials’ attempts to censor some of this material in the 1940s, she continued to make it accessible in the library’s basement.

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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On the National Register nearby

Gainsboro Branch of the Roanoke City Public Library80 ft

Places within about 300 feet of this marker that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A nearby listing is not always the marker's own subject.