Durham Colored Library Begins New Chapter, with New Name, at Duke

Mellon Foundation Provides Three-Year Grant to Launch “DCL at Duke”

Postcard showing the interior of the Durham Colored Library’s first location on the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets, undated (courtesy Durham Public Library).

The Durham Colored Library (DCL), one of North Carolina’s oldest Black-led nonprofit organizations, will enter a new era through a formal partnership and merger with the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University. The collaboration, known as DCL at Duke, will continue the DCL’s century-long mission to preserve, share, and uplift stories of Black life in Durham, and provide an enduring foundation for the Rubenstein Library’s community engagement and outreach efforts. The Mellon Foundation has committed funding to support the program’s first three years while Duke and DCL establish sustainable, long-term support.

The Durham Colored Library began as a small collection of books donated in 1913 by Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore, Durham’s first Black physician, and North Carolina Central University founder Dr. James E. Shepard. Both young men were prominent members of White Rock Baptist Church in Durham’s Hayti neighborhood, where the library first operated out of a Sunday School room.

In 1918, the library was officially chartered and got its own space in a two-story building on the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets owned by entrepreneur and civic leader John Merrick, who also collaborated with Moore to found the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the first Black-owned insurance firm in the U.S.

Left to right: John Merrick, Charles Clinton Spaulding, and Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore, early twentieth-century pillars of Durham’s Black community and founders/supporters of the Durham Colored Library and North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (courtesy Durham County Library).

At the time, the Durham Colored Library was only the second library in segregated North Carolina to serve Black citizens. Its operations soon expanded into community organizations across Durham’s Black neighborhoods, with branches located in McDougald Terrace, the John Avery Boys’ Club, and the Bragtown Community Center. In 1940, a second standalone branch, the Stanford L. Warren Library, opened on Fayetteville Street. A year later, a bookmobile began serving rural Black residents of Durham County.

In its early years, the DCL was more than a library to Durham’s Black community. It was a safe haven where residents could gather, read, learn, and share ideas. The library also offered children’s programming, including Saturday morning film screenings and afterschool study space.

When the Durham County Library system finally desegregated in 1969, the DCL’s branches and bookmobile became part of the municipal library system. But the DCL nonprofit organization continued to operate under the same name, providing literary services, articles, programming, and community events highlighting little-known Black history.

Over the decades, the DCL evolved into a vibrant cultural and educational nonprofit, dedicated to creating a more inclusive record of the American experience through storytelling, literacy, and education programs. One of its longest-running projects was the Merrick Washington Magazine, which first reprinted syndicated news articles in Braille and later in large print for a visually impaired readership. Other DCL projects included Saving Our Stories, an oral history collaboration with the Museum of Durham History’s Story Squad program and Durham County Library’s North Carolina Collection; a published biography of Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore; and Techies4Tomorrow, a digital learning platform for grades 3-5 that introduces students to pioneering African Americans in STEM fields.

Lyda M. Merrick (left) stands with two blind library patrons by a display of the Negro Braille Magazine, an early version of the Merrick Washington Magazine, published by the Durham Colored Library (courtesy Durham County Library).

Under the new partnership, DCL at Duke will become part of the Rubenstein Library’s Community Engagement Program, forming a bridge between the university library and the Durham community and guided by an advisory committee of community and university representatives.

While such a merger between two nonprofit library organizations is uncommon, it is also mutually strategic. Duke has a longstanding relationship with the DCL, many of whose leaders and board members are Duke alumni, faculty, or former university employees. The Rubenstein Library holds the papers of the DCL’s founding families and is also home to the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, with strong archival collections documenting Black life throughout history. And the Duke University Libraries’ new strategic plan aligns with DCL’s core mission and values, particularly in its emphasis on deepening outreach and engagement with the Durham community, which will be the focus of the new DCL at Duke program.

A three-year, $220,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation will provide the resources to launch the program, supporting internships, teacher training, community programming, and digital storytelling projects that extend the reach of Durham’s Black history. During this time, the Duke University Libraries and DCL board will work jointly to establish an endowment to sustain the program thereafter.

Interior of the recently renovated Stanford L. Warren Library on Fayetteville St., the Durham Colored Library’s second standalone branch, which became part of the Durham County Library system after integration (courtesy Muter Construction).

“For more than a century, the Durham Colored Library has carried forward the vision of our founder, Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore. With Mellon’s generous support and Duke University Libraries as our partner, we can be confident that our community’s stories will be preserved, celebrated, and shared with future generations,” said C. Eileen Watts Welch, chair of the DCL board and great-granddaughter of Dr. Moore. “This collaboration ensures that the DCL’s legacy of education, service, and storytelling will continue to grow through Duke’s support while staying rooted in the community that built it.”

“The Durham Colored Library is an essential part of Durham’s cultural and educational heritage,” said Joseph A. Salem, Jr., Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke. “DCL at Duke represents our shared commitment to preserving and expanding access to Black history, and to building lasting connections between the university and our local communities. Through this unique, only-in-Durham partnership, we will activate new opportunities for students, scholars, and neighbors to learn from and contribute to our home city’s rich history.”