The Sylvia Gaither Garrison Library Celebrates Its 2nd Anniversary

On Saturday, November 7, 2009, the staff of the Banneker-Douglass Museum, along with business and community leaders, and members of the Annapolis community came together to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of the Sylvia Gaither Garrison Library. The program began with a prayer by Rev. Hunt, the founder and pastor of the Grace of God Outreach Ministries in Baltimore, Maryland. Following the invocation, the audience, led by Denise Strothers, a recording artist, sang Lift Every Voice and Sing, the African American National Anthem. The staff of the Sylvia Gaither Garrison Library dedicated a poem, My First Memory (of Librarians), written by Nikki Giovanni, to the library's namesake, Sylvia Gaither Garrison. Then, the business and community leaders dramatically read the writings of such literary giants as Frederick Douglass, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, Dudley Randall, Margaret Walker, Benjamin Banneker, and others. Betty Coleman, president of Friends of the Banneker-Douglass Museum and a board member of the Banneker-Douglass Museum Foundation, ended the event with a stirring reading of a poem entitled Harriet Tubman, written by Margaret Walker.