Sarah-Ann Shaw, the pioneering Boston journalist who died last year at age 90, believed deeply in the power of education to change lives and uplift communities. A devoted supporter of public libraries, she frequented branches in Boston’s Black community during her student years and often took her daughter Klare to peruse and check out books near their apartment in Lower Roxbury. Sarah-Ann joined the “Friends of the Boston Public Library” to raise funds promoting literacy, Black History and cultural education throughout the city.

As a long-time colleague of Sarah-Ann’s at WBZ-TV in Boston, I can personally attest to how much she valued reading, education and Boston’s proud history as the Athens of America. In her decades of television reporting, she prioritized opportunities to share stories of kids striving to learn and grow with the support of our city’s many colleges, universities and libraries – our collective repositories of history and knowledge.

Just last week, the Boston Public Facilities Commission, upon the unanimous recommendation of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library, voted 3-0 to rename the branch in Nubian Square in honor of Shaw. The “Shaw-Roxbury Branch,” which recently underwent a dazzling $17 million renovation, will stand as a living memorial to Sarah-Ann’s legacy, inviting us to dedicate ourselves to literacy and access to books. The branch also boasts a teaching kitchen to promote good nutrition and technology updates to increase its use and appeal to the community.

The decision, supported by Mayor Michelle Wu, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and scores of other city leaders, rejected a well-intentioned second effort by community activist Sadiki Kambon, among others, to extend the name of nearby Nubian Square to the branch. His first attempt to rebrand the library came in 2020, a year after he helped spearhead a referendum question to drop the name Dudley Square — named for a 17th century colonial governor who enforced slavery in the colony — in favor of Nubian Square. The library trustees, taking into account the troubled history of Gov. Dudley, voted 7-4 to pass over Kambon’s suggestion and name the Warren Street library the “Roxbury Branch.” Evelyn Arana-Ortiz, vice chair of the trustees at the time, cited the support of the Roxbury Historical Society and Friends of the Dudley Branch for the Roxbury Branch designation. She said the vote also expressed preference for an inclusive geographical name that did not evoke a particular ethnicity — “Nubian” being derived from the ancient civilization of Africa’s central Nile River valley.

That vote, reflecting growing demands to rename public buildings in Boston, was among several that led the Wu administration to adopt a policy last year to invest the final authority to rename buildings in the Public Facilities Commission upon the recommendation of the controlling agency and the support of the mayor. That process provides renaming advocates with several stages to build support for their suggestions — first, for example, with the school board for school buildings and then with the Public Facilities Commission.

In the case of the Shaw-Roxbury Branch, honoring Sarah-Ann Shaw with the renaming was an idea first broadly raised in a 2018 Boston Herald column by Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, a veteran Roxbury political and communications operative, while the late TV reporter was still alive. “I’ve always associated her with the library,” Ferriabough Bolling told the Banner last week. “Doing something for the library, being in the library, speaking in the library, helping somebody in the library. She’s always been connected to the library.” Renaming the library for Sarah-Ann, she said, was an appropriate way to recognize a homegrown hero who had done so much for educating the public about the real stories of the Black community and who had done so much for the library branch that now bears her name.

Klare Shaw, Sarah- Ann’s daughter, told the Banner this week that as she sorts through her mother’s papers, she is finding extensive files with library fundraising letters focused on the Shaw-Roxbury Branch, meetings about renovations and plans for programming there. She said her mother appreciated all of Boston’s libraries but was particularly dedicated to the one that now bears her name. “Mom put her time into the Roxbury Branch,” said Klare. “She didn’t drive and I can’t tell you how many times I would drop her off on Warren Street at that branch to attend meetings, go to events or just meet people.”

Two of Sarah-Ann’s greatest strengths were patience and persistence. She did not try to overwhelm news directors with harangues about positive coverage of the Black community. Hers was a gentler art of moral suasion, never raising her voice but nevertheless digging in to amplify the voices of those who needed to be heard.

In a time of political challenges, with federal support of public libraries and public schools being withdrawn by the Trump administration — which also fired Carla Hayden, the first Black head of the Library of Congress — we do well to honor local heroes like Sarah-Ann Shaw who fought so long and fought so hard, in her quiet and effective way, for equity in education and the media.

“I am so grateful to so many people who supported honoring my mother,” said Klare Shaw. As for those who persist in public attacks, “that would make my mother sad,” she added. “I just hope we can heal and move forward.”

Those left embittered by the decision to name the branch library after Sarah-Ann should end their undignified online campaign of accusations and recriminations against the winning side. Their campaign is propped up with misinformation at best, and feels like just another lowbrow election year attack on the current administration. Anyone who wants to honor the Nubian civilizations and its storied tradition of education should want to honor Sarah-Ann Shaw, Roxbury’s modern day Nubian Queen.

Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner