4 days ago
Trailblazing Black journalist Sarah-Ann Shaw loved her Roxbury library. Now it bears her name.
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'She would just want to encourage people to come to the library, to get books, to be literate, to share their love of learning and literacy, and, as importantly, to give their time and money to support programs at the library for the community,' Klare Shaw said.
The BPL board of trustees has voted to rename the library, the largest branch in the BPL system, highlighting Shaw's civil service.
The Roxbury branch, which opened in 1978, was the result of a merger of two branches, the Mount Pleasant Branch and the Fellowes Athenaeum branch. Klare Shaw said her mother supported the merger, but rallied to make sure that some of the money BPL made in the process went back to the local community in the form of scholarships and library programs.
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Sarah-Ann Shaw was also a member of the 'Friends of the Library' group, which raises funds to promote and enrich library materials.
'She's kind of with me anyway, so I don't need a reminder on a building, but I think it is an honorable testimony to the work that she and so many others did to sustain that branch,' her daughter said.
Dion Irish, chief of operations for the City of Boston, who grew up in Roxbury, said the decision to rename the library came about after over a year of community leaders asking Mayor Michelle Wu's administration to consider the honor.
'This is a great thing. It's not often that we have buildings named after people of color in Boston,' Irish said.
Irish said the library plans to honor other important community members who knew Shaw, such as civil rights activist Mamie Jones, and Francine Gelzer, the first Black librarian at the Roxbury BPL branch.
Shaw was born in 1933 and grew up in Roxbury. She was the daughter of two civil rights activists, and she covered public affairs in Boston after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Before then, Shaw was already an advocate for education and literacy. She was the cofounder of the Northern Student Movement, where she ran a tutoring program for kids at the time of desegregation lawsuits.
Shaw's program 'Say, Brother,' now called 'Basic Black,' focused on
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'The symbolism of the library and Sarah is a perfect match. In a library, you get to imagine, share ideas, and explore, and all of that spoke to the foundation of who Sarah-Ann was,' said Peter Brown, a former colleague of Shaw at WBZ.
Brown said that although Shaw covered hard-hitting issues like the
'Whenever she could cover a story about young people in the city doing something good, she would fight for it,' Brown said.
For her work, Shaw holds the Chuck Stone Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Association of Black Journalists, an honor she shares with Oprah Winfrey.
Alfreda Harris, legendary basketball coach and the
'We all worked for the same thing, which was the betterment of young people and our community and to support things that we felt made our community better,' Harris said.
Community member Toy Burton, founder of the Roxbury Unity Parade, said naming the library after a Roxbury local is essential to uplifting the community.
'Sarah-Ann is a connection to the community,' Burton said.
Burton said during the pandemic, she organized a 'Caravan for Sarah-Ann Shaw,' and locals drove by her house beeping and waving with gratitude for her years of community work.
'I hope that when kids walk through the halls of a public library named after somebody who grew up in the same neighborhood that they did, that they know they can do great things,' Burton said.
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Maria Probert can be reached at
