The BPL Board of Trustees in their Annual Meeting on May 26, voted 7 to 4 to change the name of the Dudley Library to the Roxbury Library, after a heated but civil debate among the Mayoral appointees that sidelined the other proposed moniker: Nubian Library, championed by the Nubian Square Coalition. The vote follows earlier successful efforts by the Coalition to replace the names of Dudley Square, where the library is located, with Nubian Square, and the Dudley MBTA Bus Station’s, which is to be renamed Nubian Station.

Last year’s non-binding City ballot question about the proposed name change for Dudley Square was solidly defeated citywide, but within the precincts surrounding Dudley Square it passed with about the same lopsided numbers as it was defeated elsewhere. This is why Mayor Marty Walsh decided the local vote would ‘weigh heavily’ in the final decision. Thomas Dudley, a prominent Puritan politician and governor of the Bay State in the mid 1600s when slavery was officially sanctioned, left no trace of having owned slaves himself.

The vote to resolve what name Dudley Branch should have was to some extent forced by the impending reopening of the 27,000 square-foot branch library, renovated after decades of neglect at a cost of $17.2 million. A desire to settle the signage question in time for the reopening began the discussion, although BPL president David Leonard made it clear it was not determinative. And while the non-binding ballot question did establish strong support for changing the name of the square where the branch was located, it did not survey the specific question of whether the branch library should be called the Nubian Library, as well.

The Friends of Dudley Branch, who for decades lobbied and advocated to improve the branch library, favored calling it the Roxbury Branch, as did the Roxbury Historical Society. Some of the trustees supporting the Roxbury name said the branch would not just serve the largely African-American community living close to the library, but a much larger one surrounding it. Trustee Evelyn Arana-Ortiz pointed out that Roxbury was once largely German and Irish before it became African American, and is now increasingly seeing the growth of a very diverse demographic that includes a sizable Latino population. “Nubian Library doesn’t represent fully the history of Roxbury,” she commented.