Built in 1940, the Stanford L. Warren Library was originally an expansion of a Sunday School library at White Rock Baptist Church. Dr. Aaron Moore started the church library in 1913, and it is believed to be the second-oldest library established for African-Americans in North Carolina.

Proving popular, the church library became a public library and relocated to its own building at Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets - the heart of the Hayti business district - in 1916. Further growth led to the present library, which is named for Warren, who was the library board's president from 1923 to 1940, and who donated the land on which it was built.