The Activist Life of E. J. Josey

A towering figure in both librarianship and the civil rights movement, E. J. Josey (1924-2009) cofounded the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) and served as ALA president (1984-1985). He inspired and mentored colleagues and students with a leadership style that reverberates today. Renate L. Chancellor, associate professor in the Department of Library and Information Science at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and author of E. J. Josey: Transformational Leader of the Modern Library Profession (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), is a leading Josey scholar. American Libraries spoke with her about his life, activism, and impact on the library world.