Serving the Central District since 1914
The Henry L. Yesler Memorial Library opened in 1914. It was the first Seattle branch library not financed by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It was named after Yesler to recognize his early efforts to start a library in Seattle.
In 1965 the local chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., a national sorority of black college women, donated books to launch what was then called the Negro Life and History Collection and is now called the African-American Collection of literature and history.
In 1975 the branch was renamed the Douglass-Truth Branch, after Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.
