On Judith Ann Horton's birthday, May 17, we celebrate a figure from the Guthrie community and Oklahoma library history. Judith's work was ground-breaking! This amazing Black librarian, educator, and civic leader is known for founding the Excelsior Club in 1906 and the Excelsior Library in 1908.
To Judith, the path for the state's first social club for women of color was clear. “I can conceive of no better way to hasten education and uplift,” she said, “than the establishment of reading rooms and libraries in every community."
At the time, segregation laws enabled library boards such as that of the Guthrie Carnegie to bar public access. Working with club members and Guthrie Guide editor George N. Perkins, Judith campaigned for the first public library to serve Black Oklahomans.
With half the funding that the Guthrie Carnegie Library received, Excelsior Library served nearly 1,000 visitors monthly for 40 years. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016, the original building is cared for by the Guthrie Friends of Excelsior Library who plan to restore it as a museum.
Over 100 years after these statewide firsts, Judith Ann Horton's legacy continues, marked with an induction into the Oklahoma African American Educators Hall of Fame in 2018. For 11 years, Horton worked without pay as Excelsior's librarian to ensure customers could access vital library services. Like Gertrude Brown Richard, she kept the doors to learning open.
Judith Ann Carter Horton
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