Ernest's Gift

A man's lifelong love of books and reading overcomes the hurt of a childhood humiliation in this touching true tale related by Alabama storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham on the occasion of the Selma Public Library's 100th anniversary. As a child in the 1930s, Ernest Dawson loved books but was denied use of the library in segregated Selma. He grew up and became a teacher, and after segregation had ended, he left money in his will toward a children's wing of the Selma library so that children of all races could read and learn.