Parent reading a book to her child at the new Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Library

Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Branch Library

Library Hours:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 9 AM – 5 PM
Tuesday, Thursday: 1 PM – 5 PM
Saturday: Event days only (10 AM – 2 PM)
Sunday: Closed

photo of the band Hot Wrk Ensemble

Concert: Hot Wrk Ensemble
Saturday, June 21 from 2:30-4 pm
Lateef Islam Auditorium
No registration required.

Come celebrate with Juneteenth with Hot Wrk Ensemble, a saxophone/woodwind, and percussion trio founded in 2020 by award-winning musicians J Brooks Marcus (J Why), Lois Hicks-Wozniak and Brad Hubbard. Hot Wrk Ensemble explores, deconstructs, and works out concepts of traditional chamber music and the concert experience by engaging communities to interact with and partake in the creation process. Performances can include everything from contemporary art, music, jazz, world music styles to early Baroque, and arrangements of Dolly Parton and the Beatles. Expect the unexpected! The Hot Wrk Ensemble is performing free concerts during 2025 at libraries and community centers throughout Dutchess and Ulster County as part of the Statewide Community Re-grants Program through the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.

Two children looking at a science beaker in awe

Discovery Science

Every month, the Mid-Hudson Discovery Museum will be visiting the Sadie Peterson Delaney Library Branch to create some amazing science experiments and talk about important people in the science world that not everyone has heard about. For kids grade 1-5.

Thursdays, 3:30pm – 4:30pm. Registration required.

Thursday, July 10, register here. 

Detail of a handmade wax paper lantern

Color Our World- Wax Paper Lanterns

Saturday, July 19, 2025
1:00pm–2:00pm
Registration required, click here.
Let’s Color Our World together by making colorful paper lanterns that shine like stain glass!
Example of a tie dye pattern

Color Your World with Tie-Dye!

Monday, July 21, 3:00pm–4:30pm
Registration required, click here.

Looking for something easy but colorfully fun to do for you and your child this summer? Come in with your family and recycle your favorite pieces of clothing at our tie-dye event! Need a shirt or bandana to tie-dye? We’ve got you covered. Families with children encouraged to attend. Recommended for all ages.

About Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Branch Library:

The Family Partnership Center building was formerly Poughkeepsie High School and later Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School. The library occupies the same space that housed the schools’ libraries. The branch will have a particular focus on early literacy as an important developmental step for children. The original African Roots Library collection that occupied this space is curated through a partnership between the Library Action Committee and the Poughkeepsie Public Library District.

The branch is named in honor of Sadie Peterson Delaney, who attended Poughkeepsie High School and was active in the Smith Metropolitan AME Zion Church. She went on to serve as Chief Librarian at the Veterans Administration Hospital Library in Tuskegee, Alabama, where her work in Bibliotherapy received international attention.

Learn more about Sadie Peterson Delaney via our Local History Blog or by visiting Dutchess County Historical Society‘s recording program about Sadie P. Delaney.

Sadie Peterson Delaney at her desk with a sign that reads "Books break the tedious hospital hours and minimize illness". Image courtesy of Tuskegee University Archives