The Cossitt Library Sit-In

Cossitt Library, on Front Street overlooking the Mississippi, was the oldest public library in Memphis, and until 1960 Black residents could not use it. On Saturday, March 19, 1960, the day after sit-ins reached the city at a downtown lunch counter, 36 students from LeMoyne and Owen colleges left a rally and sat down in the Cossitt and Peabody libraries. All 36 were arrested, along with five Black journalists covering them. Dorothy Truitt Walk of LeMoyne was arrested numerous times in the sit-ins. A lawsuit was already under way. Jesse H. Turner, an accountant and officer of the Black-owned Tri-State Bank, had sued over the libraries, represented by local lawyers H.T. Lockard, A.W. Willis Jr. and R.B. Sugarmon Jr. with Thurgood Marshall and Constance Motley. On October 13, 1960, the city announced that the libraries were open regardless of race. A federal court in Turner v. Randolph finished the job in 1961 by striking the segregation ordinance as applied to their restrooms. According to Turner's son, sit-ins were planned in the bank's boardroom and officials kept the vault open at night for bail money. Cossitt opened in 1893 as a red sandstone castle, funded by the daughters of Frederick Cossitt. A 1959 rebuilding, the year before the sit-in, erased that front for glass and concrete. The library closed about 2018 and reopened on April 11, 2023, with an exhibit depicting the student demonstrators. A marker to them stands on the LeMoyne-Owen campus.