You can check www.workdayminnesota.org's bio of Nellie using the links at
the bottom of
http://www.workdayminnesota.org/daily/news/0403johnson.php
(note, if this is too long for your email program,you may
have to cut and past the link into your browser).
Alos,it's time to start the discussion of the Nellie Stone Johnson Hall of
Community Activists again. I sent this last June:
------------------------------------------------
For the new downtown library:
The Nellie Stone Johnson Hall of Community Activists
Loki Anderson wrote:
>And, maybe, it's overdue to bring back David's idea to
>honor Nellie with a statue or some other honor when we
>build our new library. She has devoted a great deal of
>her life to this city (she's nearly 100) and her
>lifetime of activism should be honored where one of
>her greatest achievements took place, ie. the library.
This got me thinking. Below is a draft of the beginning of a proposal that
probably should go to the New Library Implementation Committee and a few
local foundations.
We are lucky that Nellie Stone Johnson had a city-wide, even state-wide
visibility. We are actually going to honor her for being an activist.
But what about all those neighborhood activists that have made this city
great but haven't risen to the visibility of Nellie. Every neighborhood
has them but no one beyond the neighborhood knows who the are or what they
did. If we don't honor these people--if we don't make these people
visible--we run the risk that people will think you have to be
extraordinary (like Nellie) to have an effect.
Here's the idea: Last year I was in Chicago and the conference center of
one of the downtown colleges has a hall of neighborhood activists. About
ten activists from Chicago neighborhoods were featured. Each had a
sculpture, a painting, and a short description of what they did. It was
one of the most powerful public art exhibitions I've ever seen.
The new Minneapolis Downtown Library is planned to have a "significant
public space." Lets take the Chicago idea and expand on it:
"The Nellie Stone Johnson Hall of Community Activists."
A statue of Nellie Stone Johnson as you enter the building. Then in the
first year we start with five activists, each with a sculpture, painting
and story. Every three or four or five years, we add an activist.
Here's the first rule for picking the activists: Except for Nellie, no one
who was elected to office can qualify. (I'll be nominating Al Hage).
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
Sheldon Mains, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Seward Neighborhood, Minneapolis
"Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories."
--Laurie Anderson as reported in wired
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