Mayme A. Clayton

Mayme A. Clayton
(1923 - 2006)
Founder

Mayme Agnew Clayton was born in Van Buren, Arkansas. She received a Bachelor of Art Degree from the University of California, Berkeley; a Master’s Degree in Library Science from Goddard College, Vermont and a Doctorate in Humanities from Sierra University, Los Angeles.

In 1952 Mayme Clayton began her career as a librarian at Doheny Library at the University of Southern California (USC). In 1957 she went to work as a law librarian for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). During her tenure at UCLA Dr. Clayton was a consultant and founding member of the Afro-American Studies Center Library.

Inspired at an early age by the life of Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr. Clayton felt compelled to preserved the scattered and often neglected history of Americans of African heritage. In the early 1950’s with single-minded purpose Mayme Clayton began collecting rare and out-of-print books written by or about blacks. The collection evenutally branched into rare documents, films, music and other areas to become the world's second largest and most subtantial collection of African Americana..

When asked what motivated her, she replied, “I wanted to be sure that children would know that black people have done great things and at the time I didn't see anyone else saving the history ”

Want to know more about what motivated Mayme Clayton? How did she assemble such an amazing collection? Read Dr. Clayton's answers to some of those questions in a recent interview. Click here: http://www.wsbrec.org/press/documents/MACEXTBIO.pdf

MCLM