The man behind the Rockford Black History Month fact of the day is learning as he goes

Chris Green, Rockford Register Star
Updated ·2 min read
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If you have been enjoying the daily local Black history facts brought to you by the Rockford Register Star and Rockford Public library in honor of Black History Month, you can thank Jawuan Walters.

Walters, 26, is an information services librarian at the Rockford Public Library who accepted the challenge of finding one interesting local Black history fact for each day of February to be published online at rrstar.com and in print in the Rockford Register Star.

Walters, a Poughkeepsie, New York, native, arrived in Rockford in June.

"I've always had an interest in history," he said. "I was an undergrad history major. So when I got here, it piqued my interest to know that there was a whole department based on local history in Rockford."

Librarian Jawuan Walters poses for a portrait Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024, in the local history room of the Hart Interim Library in downtown Rockford.
Librarian Jawuan Walters poses for a portrait Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024, in the local history room of the Hart Interim Library in downtown Rockford.

More: Black History Month: Rockford's first Black high school graduate

Walters received his master's degree from the University of Michigan where he studied information science.

The Rockford Public Library has numerous resources to help tell the story of the city's Black residents, Walters said. In addition to books, the library has online databases for publications like The Crusader, a now-defunct African American weekly newspaper, which published in the 1950s.

While learning about the city's Black history, Walters also is learning about the city in general.

"Rockford falls just underneath the condition of the rust belt cities that we see all across the country," he said. "Maybe not as severe as Detroit or Cleveland or those other cities, but Rockford is in that same trajectory."

He spoke of the city's once numerous factories providing good wages and a large middle class tax base and how the city suffered when those factories closed or moved elsewhere.

"But what I also see here is a segment of the community that is really trying to bring some type of revitalization into the city, and it's worthwhile to be a part of that."

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Jawuan Walters' name and the spelling of his hometown.

Chris Green is a Rockford Register Star general assignment reporter. He can be reached at 815-987-1241, via email at cgreen@rrstar.com and Twitter @chrisfgreen.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: RPL's Jawaun Walters: Learning, sharing Rockford's Black history