Johnnie O. Dent Endowed Scholarship supports graduate students and honors a unique legacy
Thursday, 07/13/2023
By Abigail McFeeJohnnie O. Dent is introduced as “energetic and irrepressible” in a C-SPAN video of a 1998 author event at Queens Public Library in East Elmhurst. As branch manager, she starts by making sure everyone in the audience has a library card or knows how to get one. “We are very community minded,” she tells them. “Most of you in this room would have your own story to tell.”
Part of Johnnie’s story: She was one of the first African American students to attend UMSI. She graduated with a degree in library science in 1963, three decades before her daughter.
Now, Valeda Dent, PhD (MILS ‘92), has established the Johnnie O. Dent Endowed Scholarship Fund in honor of her mother, who passed away in 2021. The fund will provide financial assistance to graduate students pursuing their degrees at UMSI, enabling them to effect change in ways that are meaningful to them.
“According to my mom, her experience at Michigan was transformative,” said Valeda, “because that was her first experience as a young Black woman from the segregated South who was accepted based on her ability to arrive and do the work.”
Johnnie grew up in rural Marion, Alabama, during the civil rights movement. Coming from a large family, she would be the only child of nine to obtain a graduate degree. Johnnie was also the first cousin of Coretta Scott King, and she was proud of the active role her family took in the fight against segregation.
After earning her undergraduate degree from Stillman, a historically Black college in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Johnnie was accepted into the University of Alabama, but administrators rescinded her admission when they found out she was Black. The University of Alabama would not admit an African American student until four years later, in the summer of 1963, when ordered by a federal district court.
But Johnnie’s path didn’t end with a closed door. In an act of defiance against segregation, white freedom fighters who were active in rural Alabama offered their support, arranging for her to apply to the University of Michigan.
Community engagement and advocacy, which she had witnessed throughout her youth, became the guiding themes of Johnnie’s time at U-M and her 45-year career as a public librarian.
At Queens Public Library in East Elmhurst, she was focused on the needs of children and young adults, particularly those who were underserved by their public schools. She excelled as an administrator of community-facing programs, which not only included author visits but drama classes, jazz programs and exercise classes. She always lived in the community where she worked, so she was able to “see longitudinal change” firsthand.
“In my mind, she was sort of ahead of the game in terms of understanding the role that public libraries play in these communities,” said Valeda. “Her entire career was shaped around that organizing principle. That had great meaning for me.”
Building on a Legacy
The endowed fund will further Johnnie O. Dent’s commitment to community engagement by supporting graduate students at UMSI who are using information studies to build a better world.
Valeda hopes this fund will activate the kind of belonging her mother found at UMSI, which not only provided her with full funding but “embraced her and supported her in developing her talent.”
Most importantly, Valeda would like for the scholarship to encourage other students — including students of color and students from underserved communities — to pursue a career in information. “My mom would have been so proud to be supporting students in this way,” she said.
A lifelong researcher and the inaugural vice provost of libraries and museum at Emory University, Valeda has published extensively on research interests that include the impact of chronic poverty on rural development, rural libraries in Africa and related literacy and reading habits, and emerging data technologies.
She is a newly appointed member of the UMSI Advisory Board. In this role, she will help to advance the mission of the school through philanthropic support, engagement with the UMSI community, recruitment and mentorship.
Valeda believes that UMSI’s mission goes hand-in-hand with her mother’s legacy. “Community engagement within information science has so many different meanings now,” she said, citing the impact of inclusive UX design and community-facing projects. “Advocacy, access and engagement are tantamount to understanding and bettering a world that can be heartbreaking and spectacular at the same time. My mother would have loved all of that.”