ROANOKE, Va. – While America is celebrating its 250th anniversary, Roanoke is remembering Virginia Lee, a librarian whose protection of Black literature helped sustain Roanoke’s community through segregation and beyond.
Virginia Lee worked as a librarian at the Gainsboro Library after she moved back home in 1928, until her retirement in 1971.
Recommended Videos
The Gainsboro Library opened in 1921 as a library for Black residents. In fact, the library was only the second one for African Americans in Virginia at the time it opened.
Under Lee’s leadership, the library expanded and relocated in the early 1940s. She developed a robust collection of Black literature, organized book clubs and after‑school programs, hosted lecturers, and subscribed to Black periodicals and journals — sometimes paying subscriptions from her own pocket. For many Black families in Gainsboro, the library was a second home, and Lee was a matriarchal figure whose expectations and oversight extended into the neighborhood.
“If you got in trouble at the library, you got trouble at home,” said Former Mayor and Local Historian Nelson Harris.
Lee’s job was not without conflict. During the 1940s, Roanoke’s all‑white political leadership criticized Virginia Lee’s collection of Black literature as “subversive” and demanded their removal. Rather than destroy or permanently discard the holdings, Lee moved the newspapers, journals, and books to the library’s basement — out of sight but still available to patrons who asked for them.
“I would always refer to it as ‘Roanoke’s secret library,’” said Harris.
Today, the literature Lee collected and safeguarded form the Virginia Lee Collection at the Gainsboro Library, where they remain available to the public.
The state historic marker, installed in 2023 and unveiled at a well‑attended ceremony with a reception at the Gainsboro Library, intentionally includes Lee’s name because, as Harris said, “the Gainsboro Library story is so much her story.”
Harris also said Lee’s story is part of a broader history.
“What she did was really part of a larger movement by Black, typically female, librarians throughout the American South who were experiencing this same thing,” said Harris. “These women kept intact the collections and the archives of their libraries.”
Those involved in the marker effort describe Lee as courageous yet humble — someone who did not seek recognition. When asked about including her name on the marker, Harris said a local attendee told him Lee would likely have refused the accolade.
For visitors: the Virginia Lee Collection remains at the Gainsboro Library and the state marker stands at the library entrance, commemorating a librarian whose deliberate acts helped keep a community’s history and literature alive.