by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
Today, GBN celebrates Dr. Carla D. Hayden who in 2016 became the first woman and first African American person to serve the nation as Librarian of Congress.
To read about Dr. Hayden, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 21st, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
It’s in the category of Black Firsts we call “It’s About Time.”
When President Barack Obama hired Dr. Carla D. Hayden in 2016, he was doing things by the book – literally! University of Chicago graduate Hayden became the first woman and first African American person to hold the position of Librarian of Congress.
Sworn in on September 14th of that year, Hayden also became the first professional librarian to hold the post in over 60 years.
Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, she was the first African American person to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling.
Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.
And just last week, Columbia University announced that Dr. Hayden will receive its honorary doctorate of letters during commencement this May.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
“Librarianship was really an adventure for me-to find out that there’s a profession that was dedicated to making books and reading and knowledge available to people. And that just seemed ideal. The confirmation process was really an eye-opener for me in so many ways because I got to meet legislators that were committed to not only the nation’s history, but making information available. And that made me very pleased that I was confirmed. My vision for this library is very simple: that people will realize that they have a national treasure and that it is part of their heritage and everyone can find something in the Library of Congress, produced by the Library of Congress, that relates to their lives or where they want to go.”
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
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Sources:
- https://www.loc.gov/about/about-the-librarian/
- https://www.wypr.org/show/midday/2021-08-10/dr-carla-hayden-the-librarian-of-congress-on-why-libraries-matter
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carla-Hayden
- https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/carla-hayden-41
- https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-7396?
- https://www.chicagotribune.com/people/ct-carla-hayden-14th-librarian-of-congress-1231-20220103-76khacp7wbgc5l75scsqx22ida-story.html
- https://youtu.be/LoFlFxtv0HM (CBS Morning feature)
(amazon links are paid links)
