Roxbury BPL branch renamed to honor Sarah-Ann Shaw

The Roxbury branch of the Boston Public Library is slated to be renamed to honor longtime community leader and local journalist Sarah-Ann Shaw.

In voting to rename the library, which will officially be known as the Shaw-Roxbury Branch, the Trustees of the Boston Public Library noted Shaw’s contributions to the Roxbury community and to representation for Black female journalists in the television news industry.

Sarah-Ann Shaw PHOTO: HAKIM RAQUIB

Shaw, a lifelong Roxbury resident, worked at WBZ-TV as a news reporter — the station’s first Black news reporter — for over 30 years. She died in March 2024.

Family and friends of Shaw said the name was fitting for a woman who spent years connected to and in support of the institution.

The library, said Klare Shaw, her daughter, was a spot that would bring “real joy” to Sarah-Ann’s face.

“When people say they’re in their happy place, she was in her happy place when she was at the library,” Klare Shaw said.

The move to rename the library after her, Klare Shaw said, would have “humbled and honored” her mother.

Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, who has advocated the renaming of the library after Sarah-Ann Shaw for almost a decade, said Shaw, her mentor, was “very deserving of this honor.”

In 2018, knowing that Shaw was ill and that a renovation of the library was happening — and amid the renaming of the former Skycap Lounge function hall on Warren Street after Thelma D. Burns — Ferriabough Bolling penned an op-ed in the Boston Herald celebrating the naming of local buildings after Black leaders and calling for the Roxbury branch to be named after Shaw.

“I’ve always associated her with the library,” Ferriabough Bolling said. “Doing something for the library, being in the library, speaking in the library, helping somebody in the library. She’s always been connected to the library.”

Ferriabough Bolling said she only wishes that Sarah-Ann Shaw — who she said, upon seeing the 2018 op-ed, called to thank her for writing it — could have been alive to see the name change in her honor.

“I just wish that she had seen it happen before she passed away,” Ferriabough Bolling said. “But I’m very happy that she at least saw it coming in the advocacy. Nobody deserves it more.”

Klare Shaw said her mother was a long-time supporter and advocate for the library and for the community as a whole — participating in fundraising efforts, attending performances and book talks, and tutoring the community’s young people.

The current branch library opened in 1978, and although it’s not the one Klare Shaw grew up visiting, she certainly has memories of going to other libraries with her mother. The branch that will soon bear her mother’s name is a spot that she has taken her kids and grandkids to with Sarah-Ann Shaw.

Klare Shaw said she hopes that the renaming will serve as a reminder to young people in the neighborhood of what they can do.

“Mom was born in 1933 and that was a time when Boston didn’t always have the best access for people of color and Black people,” Klare Shaw said. “I think that it’s very significant to be able to see her recognized, because I think it speaks to other children who are growing up in Roxbury and saying, ‘I can achieve, and something can happen like this for me as well.’”

Local leaders, in a press release, celebrated the steps to honor Ms. Shaw.

Mayor Michelle Wu, recognized Sarah-Ann Shaw’s legacy in her announcement of the name change, saying that she “paved the way for generations of journalists, storytellers and leaders.”

“Throughout her career and long after her retirement, she dedicated herself to mentoring the next generation and creating opportunities for education and [the] community to thrive — a mission intertwined with that of our public libraries,” Wu said. “Her legacy will live on in this library branch that serves as a hub for the neighborhood.”

Rep. Ayanna Pressley called Shaw a “trailblazing, beloved, and proud daughter of Roxbury” and said that her lifelong commitment to shining light on the brilliance of Boston’s Black and brown community is an inspiration.

“May her legacy be forever honored in Roxbury, where so many of us recall seeing her building community at the newly renamed Shaw-Roxbury Branch Library at Nubian Square for decades and attempt to live up to the example she set through her words and deeds,” Pressley said in a statement.

Through this process, the city also is looking to recognize other community leaders who had a significant role in the branch library’s history, including civil rights activist Mimi Jones and Francine Gelzer, the first Black librarian at the branch.

The name of the library, which was known as the Dudley Library, after the nearby square until the area was rechristened “Nubian Square” following a 2019 non-binding ballot question and city decision, has been under debate for some community members.

A separate local effort has called for the branch to be named the Nubian Library, like the square, to represent an all-inclusive Black cultural perspective.

Klare Shaw said that she doesn’t think her mother was a particular advocate for renaming things “Nubian” — a claim some advocates have made — but said she doesn’t care whether it bears the name “Roxbury” or “Nubian” as long as her mother’s name and legacy is represented.

“If that is the will of the city and the will of people, that would be fine with me,” Klare Shaw said. “I just want to see her name linked to that and her name there at the front of the library.”