Proposed PUSH Library
Fell by the Wayside
The cataloging of some audiotapes by a part-time librarian in 1997 is apparently all that has been done for a proposed Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Civil Rights Library, funded by three state grants and originally slated to open in 1993. The library, to be housed at Jackson’s Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) in Chicago was supposed to include records, books, photographs, tapes, and documents from Jackson and other civil rights leaders.
Then–Secretary of State and now Governor George Ryan gave PUSH $52,779 in grants between 1993 and 1997 for computers and two part-time staff. Librarian Geraldine McCammon, hired by the state four years after the project was announced, left the job after six months.
According to the April 1 Chicago Sun-Times, McCammon wrote in a 1995 memo, “The ‘Jesse Jackson’ material is scattered all over the building. . . . Many of the areas are poorly lit and littered with debris. I am afraid to approach these areas for fear of what might be in them besides materials.” Jackson said the project stagnated after McCammon’s replacement died of cancer.
“It was so disorganized,” Alice Calabrese, executive director of the Chicago Library System, which oversaw the three grants, told the Sun-Times. “There’s no librarian. We haven’t heard anything in three or four years.”
Posted April 9, 2001.
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