African Tradition Marks
Broward’s Library Opening
A crowd of more than 1,000 south Florida residents and visitors attended the October 26 grand opening festivities for the delay-plagued $11.4 -million Broward County Library’s African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale. The 60,000-square-foot facility houses 75,000 books and other materials about African, African-American, and Caribbean cultures, and includes 5,000 feet of exhibit space and a 300-seat auditorium.
Chanting in African dialect and marching to the beat of an antelope-skin–covered drum, eight kente-clothed Ghanaian chiefs and elders provided entertainment. A dance troupe, led by Nigerian High Priest Osemwegie Ebohon of Benin City, performed an ancestral and ceremonial dance symbolizing a message of peace and joy to the library.
Ebony magazine Executive Editor Lerone Bennett Jr., who delivered the keynote address, called BCL Director Samuel Morrison a “dreamer and a builder.” Morrison, who will retire next year, was credited by numerous speakers as responsible for nurturing the center from its conception in the 1990s to its completion.
“It’s the legacy of the people of Broward County,” Morrison said in the October 27 Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. “It’s the legacy of donors, from those who gave $5 to those who gave a million. When you see who’s out there today, you know it was a community-wide effort.”
Posted November 4, 2002.
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