Douglass-Truth

In a post earlier this month, I wrote of my visit to one of the two Seattle Public Library branches named for a person, Madrona's Sally Goldmark branch. Here's the other one, named for two people: the Douglass-Truth branch in Seattle's Central District.

I walked here last Saturday via a 3-mile loop from First Hill, since I was eager to see more of the neighborhood. My route passed other strongholds of Seattle black culture including Garfield High School and several historically black churches, as well as signs of accelerating diversity in this always-changing area (hipster coffee houses and new apartment buildings). As I arrived outside the library and took a few photos, I saw several other people who look like me (white, middle aged) enter the branch. But once inside, as I settled into the comfortable magazine reading area, two young black men took chairs nearby in our shared community living room.

This branch dates to 1914, and it was originally named for Henry Yesler, the pioneering Seattle businessman and politician whose mansion served as an early home to the Seattle Public Library until it burned in 1901. This was the first branch financed by city funds instead of money from Andrew Carnegie, and, as the SPL website recounts, it served "a hardscrabble area that was home to many newcomers to the city" and "soon became the busiest branch in the Library system."

Although Carnegie didn't underwrite this branch, the original design by architects W. Marbury Somervell and Harlan Thomas borrowed from his traditional floor plan. As the Central District became home to successive waves of new residents, the Yesler Branch continued to bustle until the 1960s, when it nearly closed. Enter the local chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a sorority of black collegiate women, who donated books in 1965 to start what's now one of the largest collections of African-American literature and history on the West Coast, with more than 10,000 items. In 1975, the branch was renamed to honor activists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, whose portraits by artist Eddie Ray Walker dominate the original upstairs space.

This month, the Douglass-Truth branch marked the 10th anniversary of a 2006 expansion. The project, which doubled the branch's square footage, added a downstairs accessed by a light-filled grand staircase that features artwork by Vivian Linder and Marita Dingus. Outside, a "Soul Pole" totem depicts local history from an African-American perspective. And as all SPL branch libraries do, the branch holds many special events, including story times and homework help sessions.