2005 PRESS RELEASES
AMB. DELL TO DONATE BOOKS TO GWERU MEMORIAL LIBRARY
(17/2/2005)
On Tuesday, February 23, 2005 United States Ambassador Christopher Dell will donate a set of children’s books at the Gweru Memorial Library at 1430 hours. The donation of the 115 books focusing on the “African-American Experience” is part of the Black History Month programming.
The library, which houses a United States Educational Advising Satellite Center, will also receive a box of adult fiction from a book club in the United States. The library also houses a varied collection of fiction and non-fiction adult reading material as well as a children’s book room and high school reading room. Gweru Memorial Library is open to the public six days a week, Monday through Saturday.
The children will have access to some of the most inspiring, influential and highly regarded set of books tracing the lives of many African-Americans who have stepped forward to change history, including countless unsung heroes of people of color who played a part in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America.
In the collection, books about the big names are all there: “The Life and Words of Martin Luther King Jr.,” by Ira Peck; “Areta Franklin: Lady Soul,” by Leslie Gourse; “Duke Ellington,” by Andrea Davis Pinkney; “Muhammad Ali: The World’s Champion,” by John Tessitore; Rosa Parks: My story,” by Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins; “ Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary,” by Walter Dean Myers; and “Colin Powell,” by Mary Hill among several other titles on African American luminaries.
For the benefit of young readers interested in the history of blacks in America including slavery, the civil rights movement and artistic movements, many titles covering these issues have been included in the collection. While other titles dig deeper into socioeconomic and political issues of black America, a number of other titles relive African American history through famed speeches by African Americans and other “great black heroes.”
A random selection of other titles and authors include: “Women of Hope,” by Joyce Hansen; “Extraordinary People of the Harlem Renaissance,” by Jackson Hardy; and “Book of Black Heroes From A to Z,” by Wessley.
The African American experience package to Gweru Memorial Library demonstrates the strong ties of support and friendship between the people of the United States and the people of Zimbabwe.