Figure 1. Exterior of The Carnegie Library on Henry Street, Savannah, Daisy Yuen, May 27, from the Live Oak Public Libraries celebrates the Centennial of the Carnegie Library Savannah, GA 1914–2014 pamphlet, archive, Savannah Public Library.

Figure 2. Coloured Library Association of Savannah Marker, 2014. Digital Library of Georgia Courtesy of David Seibert.

Figure 3. Monthly Meeting of Senior Citizens at Carnegie Library, Daisy Yuen, May 5, taken from Savannah Public Library genealogy archives.

Figure 4. Activities at the Carnegie Library I, Daisy Yuen, May 5, taken from Savannah Public Library genealogy archives.

Figure 5. Activities at the Carnegie Library II, Daisy Yuen, May 5, taken from Savannah Public Library genealogy archives.

Figure 6. Children’s reading corner, Daisy Yuen, May 27, from the Live Oak Public Libraries celebrates the Centennial of the Carnegie Library Savannah, GA 1914–2014 pamphlet, archive, Savannah Public Library.

Figure 7. Story Hours at the Carnegie Library Basement, Daisy Yuen, May 27, from the Live Oak Public Libraries celebrates the Centennial of the Carnegie Library Savannah, GA 1914–2014 pamphlet, archive, Savannah Public Library.

Figure 8. Dancing classes in the Carnegie Library Basement, Daisy Yuen, May 27, from the Live Oak Public Libraries celebrates the Centennial of the Carnegie Library Savannah, GA 1914–2014 pamphlet, archive, Savannah Public Library.

Figure 9. The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade and The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of Slave-Trade, Daisy Yuen, April 27, taken in the Carnegie Library.

Figure 10. Carnegie Library, 537 East Henry Street, Savannah, Chatham County, GA, 1933. Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, et al. Documentation Compiled After. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.ga1147.sheet/?sp=2.

Figure 11. Daisy Yuen, Celeste Hatcher and Carnegie Library Check-out card design, ink on paper, 2023.

Libraries has been a sacred place to me, libraries store and offer abundant knowledge a person can never study enough. Browsing the stacks of books and flipping through them feels like having a conversation with our predecessors. Knowledge are gathered by scholars and kept in books, where we can learn from. Learning from school is nice but reading in the library is different, you are exposed to countless material and information. Before this project, there was not much knowledge I had of segregation. However, I was aware of the fact that coloured students did not have access to decent materials or learning opportunities compared to white students. I knew libraries would have made a significant change, therefore, I chose to study about the Savannah Coloured Library Association Historical without a single doubt.

For this project’s creative component, I created a library checkout card for the Carnegie Library in Savannah (fig. 11). One side has a table, with both due and returned dates. One the other side is a drawing depicting Miss Celeste Hatcher reading a book to a black child, in relation to the weekly “Story Hour” that librarians used to host for black elementary children. Her dedication for nurturing Savannah’s black community is celebrated in this drawing. I imagined to have this printed, either become an actual checkout card or as a souvenir. They both celebrate Miss Celeste Hatcher’s contribution to the growth of the Carnegie Library.