Emily Reed, a retired librarian who was attacked by Alabama segregationists in the 1950s, has died of a heart ailment. She was publicly criticized in the 50s for allowing a book that had a white rabbit and a black rabbit getting married to stay on her shelves.
According to the Associated Press, she was 89 and died May 19 at a retirement community in nearby Cockeysville, Md.
Reed was director of the Alabama Public Library Service Division from 1957 to 1959. She made headlines when some Alabama lawmakers castigated the book "The Rabbits Wedding" for "possible anti-segregation motives."
She removed the book from the shelves of the state libraries, but kept it on reserve shelves where it could be obtained on request.
Reed came under fire later for including on a state-distributed recommended reading list "Stride for Freedom," a book by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. about the bus boycott in Montgomery.
She left Alabama in early 1960 to become coordinator of adult services for the District of Columbia library system, where she worked for six years before moving to the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
She worked in the
library system until 1977 when she retired.