Ruby Stutts Lyells

After receiving her library degree from Hampton Institute, Lyells returned to her alma mater Alcorn A&M College to work as the head librarian; her work in collection development served as a model for other black land grant colleges.^[1] While there she also worked as a student counselor and helped found the Library Division of the Mississippi Teachers Association.^[2]

She moved to Chicago for a short time to attend the University of Chicago.^[2] After graduating with distinction in 1942, Lyells returned to Mississippi, becoming Mississippi's first professional black librarian.^[1][4]

In 1945 Lyells became the head librarian at Jackson State University, working to modernize the school's library.^[2] Two years later, she became head of the Jackson Public Library's College Park and Carver branches; Lyells was the first African American to manage libraries within the segregated system.^[2][5]

Lyells also worked as a librarian at the Atlanta Public Library System and at Iowa State University.^[1]

Historian John Dittmer described Lyells as "a forceful orator" and "an independent force for social change for more than four decades."^[6]

Lyells served a number of leadership roles in the state, including serving as president of the Mississippi State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs and as the first African-American executive director of the Mississippi State Council of Human Rights.^[7][5] Lyells was an active proponent of strong school education, and in addition to writing on that subject in the 1940s and the 1950s in the Journal of Negro Education, her work in education included chairing the Biracial Committee for the Jackson Municipal Separate School District and being appointed by the federal courts in 1970 to help implement desegregation.^[2][5] She was a trustee of the Prentiss Institute in Prentiss, Mississippi and the Ruby E. Stutts Lyells Library was dedicated in her name in May 1968.^[7]

She was a long-time supporter of the state and national Republican Party and she served on the Advisory Committee of the co-chairman of the Republican National Convention in 1970.^[1]

Lyells died in Jackson on December 22, 1994.^[1] After her death, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran commended her on the Senate floor:^[1]

[O]ne mark of the courage and interest in the political development of our State was illustrated by Mrs. Lyells' active and conspicuous participation in the development of the modern Republican Party in Mississippi. As an African-American, she took a stand and defended it with grace and with dignity and with intelligence, in a way that reflected credit on many of us who were actively involved in trying to build a new political party as a vehicle for political expression for our State and the citizens of our State at the national level.