Council supports renaming library community room after late Mimi Jones

The Friends of the Grove Hall Branch Library have proposed renaming their second floor community space in honor of Mamie (Mimi) Jones. Born May 4, 1947, Mimi was an exceptional student who was already deeply engaged in civil rights activism at the age of 15 when she helped register new voters and taught them how to pass state registration tests. literacy.

This work led Mimi, her sister and others to organize a “swim-in” to desegregate public pools and beaches in St. Augustine, Florida. This act of civil disobedience resulted in Mimi and other protesters being attacked with muriatic acid, targeted by police dogs, arrested and charged with “deliberately disturbing public order”, “malicious trespass” and ” conspiracy.” Photographs of the event were published nationwide the next day, helping to force President Johnson and the U.S. Senate to implement the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Mimi left the South as part of the Great Migration, eventually ending up in Grove Hall where she used her experience as a civil rights leader and activist to build community across Grove Hall and Roxbury.

Mimi organized dialogues, shared readings, and worked tirelessly to support library programs. Since Mimi’s passing in 2020, Grove Hall Branch Library patrons and staff continue to remember her and want to honor her by renaming the mezzanine conference room in her honor. The community space in question is currently named after an organization that never occupied the space.

The Board passed a resolution supporting the initiative of the Friends of the Grove Hall Branch Library to change the name of the mezzanine conference room from the Teri Room to the Mimi Jones Conference Room.