The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown

I'll begin at the end.  Upon reading Robbins' epilogue about the process of writing The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown, I saw that Robbins regarded her subject matter very dearly (not unlike author Rebecca Skloot and subject Henrietta Lacks).  Unlike Skloot, Robbins admitted plainly that she was biased toward the anti-racist and anti-feminist perspectives.  I found that this strengthened the reliability of the account. 

That attempt for a balanced hand was evident in the inclusion of both Ruth Brown's positive and negative personality traits and kept me from thinking of Brown as a saint.  For example, when I read that Brown was at times viewed as harsh, strict, and overly frank, I knew that Brown's crusade for racial inequality did not spring from perfection but from a flawed individual trying to do her best.  That said, her lack of concern at the prospect of losing job and reputation was amazingly brave.  As I've researched for my group's project on intellectual freedom, it's been easy to scoff at teachers and librarians who've given into book challenges.  However, I realize that standing up to powerful community members is no easy task.  I wonder what I would do in Brown's position.  I wish I could say I knew I'd do the same as she.

Brown's commitment to free access to materials and to intellectual freedom early on were impressive.  Before the ALA had established a firm stance on intellectual freedom, it seemed to be up to individual librarians to stand up to censorship.  I was actually surprised that so many on the original library board supported Brown's choice to retain controversial materials in the library.  Though that minority may have pointed to the beginnings of intellectual freedom in the library and nationwide, it was disheartening to read of the mistreatment of Brown's supporters.  Many have suffered to bring us the library policies we find so common today.

So, this story was inspiring, but it was also informative.  The book filled in quite a few gaps in my understanding of 20th-century history that I didn't even know existed.  Previously in my mind, World War II, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and McCarthyism were disparate events.  I was interested to observe the interplay of anticommunism, racism, sexism, and classism that surrounded the events of Brown's firing.  One example was the impact that World War II's fight against racism had in encouraging anti-racist sentiment in American citizens.  On the other side of the argument, anticommunists assumed that African American and liberal organizations had communist leanings.  I had not realized that some of these broad associations stemmed from the communists' efforts in combating racism.