 Old
Central Cultural Center Plans Library's
Centennial Celebration January 16
The
nation’s oldest surviving public library
facility built for African Americans will
celebrate its 100th anniversary
on January 16, 2005.
The library opened in Galveston on
January 11, 1905, as an addition to the
Nicholas Clayton-designed Central High
School--the City's "colored" high
school.
It was a cooperative effort of the
Rosenberg Library, which had opened the year
before, the Galveston Independent School
District (GISD), and the City of Galveston.
The Clayton school building is gone,
but the addition that includes the library,
much enlarged in 1924, still exists. It was
only the second public library for blacks in
America: the first had opened in 1904 in
Louisville, Kentucky, in rented rooms.
Though no longer a part of GISD or
the Rosenberg Library, the building today
houses the Old Central Cultural Center--a
lively asset to Galveston's African American
community, and an important repository of
Island history.
Central
High School moved to a new building in 1954,
and, after nearly half a century,
integration had made the "colored"
library redundant.
The building, at 2627 Avenue M,
became in turn a middle school, an
"alternative school" providing a
second chance to students with behavioral
problems, and the site of a Head Start
program.
In 1973 the building was transferred
to a newly incorporated non-profit
organization, and opened as the Old Central
Cultural Center.
Still
emblazoned in terra-cotta as the
"Colored Branch of Rosenberg
Library," the building today is in
excellent condition, and serves its
community in a variety of ways. A large
meeting room (the former library itself) is
lined with permanent exhibits of photos and
artifacts concerning the history of
Galveston's African-American community and
Central High School in particular; a smaller
meeting room (the former teacher's lounge)
recently served as a precinct polling place,
where neighbors waiting to vote could study
a series of historical displays by teenage
participants at the Nia Cultural Center; the
former gym serves as ballroom, banquet hall,
(with an efficient kitchen) and auditorium
with a new sound system, baby grand piano,
and small organ.
An elevated, recessed stage lends
itself to theater productions and concerts,
which are frequent.
Overseeing
all this activity, and the historic
building, are Ennis E. Williams, Jr. and
Maggie Williams, President and Secretary of
the Old Central Cultural Center, Inc.
Both are graduates of Central High
School, and both are retired from careers in
education, having taught at Ball High School
in Galveston, where Ennis served as
vice-principal.
They are clearly well qualified by
background to preserve the legacy embodied
in the building, and by temperament to
provide a warm welcome to community members
and all Galvestonians.
Plans
to celebrate the library's centennial
birthday are being formulated by the
Cultural Center, in cooperation with the
African American Heritage Committee of GHF
(on which Maggie Williams also serves) and
the Rosenberg Library, fresh from the
celebration of its own centennial.
In addition to festivities on January
16, the library will serve as a theme in the
Cultural Center's annual Martin Luther King,
Jr. Birthday celebration and young people's
essay contest. Other activities are planned
for the 100 years celebration later in the
year.
For more information, call (409)
744-1491.
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