“We’re So Glad You’re Here, and We’re So Glad You’re Black”: Esther Walls’s Life and Work in Libraries and Literacy Organizations

Esther J. Walls (1926–2008) was a Black librarian born in Mason City, Iowa, who sought social justice in her home state before making her belief in equity and literacy the touchstone of her significant career. Walls worked at the New York Public Library and other important institutions, including appointments to prominent organizations’ committees and boards that recognized her deep knowledge and commitment to service. While earning her master’s degree in library science from Columbia University in 1951 and for years afterward, Walls brought Black culture into the Harlem Branch library and brought the library and its resources into the Harlem community, a then-radical act of information-sharing. New technologies and artifacts from her travels to Africa formed the basis for programs and community conversations. In 1963 she led an American Library Association (ALA) Young Adult Services Division (YASD, now YALSA) committee that created African Encounter: A Selected Bibliography of Books, Films, and Other Materials for Promoting an Understanding of Africa Among Young Adults. Her distinguished career included appointments as director of the US Secretariat to promote UNESCO’s International Year of the Book in 1972 and, in the early 1990s, an appointment to the advisory board for the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.