#chicago public library

This post was submitted by Jason K. Alston on behalf of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Most of the information in the post comes from a BCALA Resolution of Respect for Rudd drafted by Dr. Sibyl Moses, with other information offered by Emily Guss, who personally knew and worked with Rudd. The image is courtesy of Chicago Public Library Archives, Special Collections.

Amanda Sullivan Rudd, the first female and first African-American commissioner of the Chicago Public Library, passed away on February 11, 2017 at the age of 93. Rudd served as the commissioner for CPL from 1982 until she retired in 1985. Prior to her appointment as CPL commissioner, Rudd served CPL as assistant chief librarian, community relations and special programs (1975), deputy commissioner (1975-1981), and acting commissioner (1981-1982). According to the Chicago Tribune, Rudd was a mentor to numerous younger colleagues at CPL, including eventual Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden. Hayden, in a letter to Rudd’s daughter, said, “Amanda was a trailblazer in the library field and I benefited greatly from her guidance during my time at the Chicago Public Library.”

A Greenville, South Carolina, native, Rudd told Ebony magazine in 1982 that she had a love for reading since the age of four, and that this love of reading led her to the doors of Greenville’s segregated public library at age 10. Rudd told Ebony that a white librarian barred her from entering; Rudd, therefore, satisfied her thirst for reading with books that her mother would buy her from a traveling salesman. Ebony stressed through their feature story on Rudd that she was a hallmark success story, going from a southern girl who was denied entry into her local library to heading what was then the nation’s largest metropolitan library system.

Rudd received her bachelor’s degree from Florida A&M University and held a master’s degree in library science from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Rudd served as a second grade teacher and an assistant director of school libraries in Cleveland during the 1960s. She was also an educational consultant with World Book Encyclopedia in Chicago during the 1970s. After her retirement from CPL, Rudd worked for distributor Baker & Taylor, and constructed annotated bibliographies of children’s books by, for, and about African-Americans.

Rudd is survived by one brother, two children, six grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, seven siblings, and one granddaughter. Rudd’s daughter is Loretta Parham, an OCLC trustee and the CEO and Director of the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library, an independent academic library for the shared benefit of four HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities)–Morehouse College, Spelman College, the Interdenominational Theological Center, and Clark Atlanta University.