Johnnie Booker Retires

Well, it's final. Although Johnnie Booker had done it before, it's official now. After ten years of heading the Supplier Diversity program at the Coca Cola Company, there was a huge celebration held at the world headquarters in Atlanta recently to announce her retirement. The event featured many prominent guests who came from near and far to wish Mrs. Booker well in her retirement. Remarks were made by Congressman Sanford Bishop whose district encompasses Mrs. Booker's hometown of Fort Valley, Georgia. Congressman John Lewis recalled the time when he first met Johnnie as a "young girl" in Washington, D.C. Mayor Kasim Reid praised her for a job well done and Vernon Jordan sent a special recorded message via video tape which was very well received. Coca Cola's own Ingrid Saunders Jones moderated the program and when she introduced Mrs. Booker, all rose to their feet to accept her. During her farewell speech, she thanked Coca Cola, her minority vendors, those on her supplier diversity team and others whose lives were touched by her presence at The Coca Cola Company. Mrs. Booker leaves The Coca Cola Company after tens years of service and also leaves behind a proud legacy which will be very difficult to duplicate. Shown is Ms. Ingrid Saunders Jones of The Coca Cola Company (in front of a photo of Mrs. Johnnie Booker) holding up a Delta Sigma Theta Pyramid. This was a gift, accompanied by a letter, which she read from the president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority congratulating soror Johnnie B. Booker on her retirement from Coca Cola. PHOTO/CUTLINE BY HORACE HENRY

UGA Opens New Special Collections Libraries

Kelly Services employee Thomas Griffith of Athens, Ga., works on shelving books on Dec. 13 inside the vault for the Rare Books Collections of the Hargrett Library as movers continue to move the libraries into the new Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. Photo By Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA

Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia special collections libraries began 2012 in a new state-of-the-art facility and celebrated the opening of the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries with a dedication on Feb. 17 at 11 a.m. on the building’s front lawn.

The recently named building houses the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and the Peabody Collection.

The university broke ground for the $46-million, 115,000-square-foot structure in January 2010. UGA raised a third of the Russell Building’s cost from private sources, along with $7 million in gifts for program endowments.

“We are exhilarated to reach completion of this outstanding new facility designed for the purpose of growing, caring for and sharing the university’s most distinguished collections,” said P. Toby Graham, deputy university librarian and director of the Hargrett Library. “After many years of planning and fundraising, we are eager to welcome students, researchers and the general public to engage with our collections in the Russell Building’s research rooms, exhibition halls and classrooms and through public events.”

Each of the special collection libraries has galleries in which to display permanent and rotating exhibits. Additionally, classrooms open for public programs allow the libraries to integrate primary source materials into instruction and meeting spaces. The building also includes digitization facilities for paper-based materials, moving images and audio as well as an oral history studio.

A highlight of the building that visitors will not see is a 30,000-square-foot Harvard-model high-density storage facility constructed largely below ground level. This type of storage model is generally used for off-site shelving facilities, making UGA’s special collections vault unique in its incorporation of high-density storage into an actual library. Items are retrieved using a motorized order picker to reach the 30-foot-high shelves.

Located near historic North Campus in a triangular tract bounded by South Hull Street, Florida Avenue and Waddell Street, the Russell Building anchors a proposed northwest quadrant of campus.

Slavery In School Homework Creates 'Outrage’

Metro Atlanta community activists are set to meet with an area schools official following the recent controversial homework assignment of mathematics made with references of slavery interjected for third grade students at Beaver Ridge Elementary School in Norcross.

Activists of the United Youth Adult Conference (UYAC), Ga. NAACP, the National Action Network, Rainbow PUSH and other groups last week (Jan. 10) prepared to meet with Gwinnett Co. school administrators following their response to the school upon complaints by parents of the students having references of the 18th Century bondage intertwined with mathematics equations. "There's an outrage among parents," Langford said, and "it's important that the larger community know this will not stand. The teachers need to be held accountable." The incident of two weeks ago was a "bad choice and done in bad taste," Langford, a former City of Atlanta director, declared. "It's inconceivable that this can happen. A lack of sensitivity for the students occurred" for the school mostly matriculated by minority students. Langford continued, "as a school system, a better job needs to be done."

Parents, furthermore, are "expressing outrage," and have sought assistance from the activists to meet with J. Alvin Wilbanks, Gwinnett's schools superintendent, according to Langford. A proposed meeting with Beaver Ridge Elementary's principal, Jose' DeJesus, is also being sought to expound on teachers inserting into the lesson the abolitionist and author, Frederick Douglass, into questions on math; however, at presstime, no such interaction has taken place. "There is an understandable outrage that must be addressed. Elementary students should not be subjected" to demeaning action, Langford stated. No date has been set for the meeting. (Telephone calls to DeJesus and Wilbanks were unreturned by early holiday presstime.) Nevertheless, Gwinnett Co. has faced similar concerns within its schools. During last school year, elementary students with homework packets were confronted with various reading assignments, including a story on illegal aliens. No disciplinary action was enacted against teachers at that time. Several years ago, the Gwinnett Co. NAACP was involved in action to rename an elementary school in Duluth for a noted African-American. Such a name change never evolved. In reference to the latest incident, however, an investigation has begun into the incident, and no further comment will be rendered, according to schools spokeswoman Sloan Roach.

No meeting date with Superintendent Wilbanks by the activists has been determined, Langford indicated. However, said Ga. NAACP President Ed Dubose, "the teachers and other staff involved with this should be fired." Beaver Ridge is an elementary school in Gwinnett Co., 40 miles north from Atlanta on I-75, that has almost 50 percent Hispanic, as well as other, minority students. Concerns also surround other metro area school districts which need resolution between parents and educators, including Cobb, as well as Gwinnett's. According to district administrators, too, Beaver Ridge Elementary remains under an improvement plan in which teachers are partaking year-long tutelage for professional development strategies, among other things, to instruct students, in which half of the 1,000-plus population of pupils are of Hispanic origin, and the remainder are African-American, Asian or Caucasian pupils.