The story of the long struggle of African Americans to attain civil rights, particularly in the South, is well documented. The story of the public library movement in America is also well documented. However, the story of the African American struggle for access to public libraries in the South is not as well documented, with much of what has been written previously told in piecemeal fashion in short studies or confined to a particular southern state.

The History of Public Library Access for African Americans in the South: Or, Leaving Behind the Plow examines this subject in the context of the South as a cohesive region. It brings together and examines the three distinct fields involved in this history: Southern Studies, African American Studies, and Library Studies. How these three fields interact and influence one another inform the history of public library access for African Americans in the South.