Frye, Helen F.
Birth Year : 1919
Helen F. Frye was born in Danville, KY. In 1963 she became the first African American woman to receive a library science degree from the ALA-accredited library school at the University of Kentucky. [Recently, it was found that James R. O'Rourke graduated from the UK Library School in 1957, and may be the first African American graduate.] Frye and two other students attempted to attend a University of Kentucky extension class taught in Danville, but they were forced to drop the class because they were African Americans (as reported in the Louisville Federal newspaper). Later Frye went to the University of Kentucky campus to earn her library degree. In 2006, she was nominated by Danville native Dr. Frank X. Walker for the University of Kentucky's Lyman T. Johnson Award, then chosen as one of the two recipients by the UK Libraries and the UK School of Library and Information Science to receive the award for her many years of service as a librarian and civil rights activist. Her oral history is included in the Civil Rights Movement in the Kentucky Oral History Project at the Kentucky Historical Society; she also has an oral history interview in the Centre College Special Collections in Danville. Mrs. Frye helped organize the first integrated production on the Centre College campus in 1951: Porgy and Bess, featuring Danville native R. Todd Duncan. For more see Library Service to African Americans in Kentucky, by R. F. Jones; Fifty Years of the University of Kentucky African-American Legacy, 1949-1999; and Helen F. Frye's oral history interviews.
Subjects: Activists, Civil Rights, Education and Educators, Librarians, Library Collections, Libraries
Geographic Region: Danville, Boyle County, Kentucky / Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky