QUEENS, NY – Borough President Melinda Katz is pleased to announce her appointment of Andrew P. Jackson to the Queens Library Board of Trustees.
Mr. Jackson (also known as Sekou Molefi Baako) is an East Elmhurst resident with a long history of community service, including 36 years as Executive Director of the Queens Library’s Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center, a full-service, general circulation library with an extensive reference collection of materials related to African American history and culture, and a cultural arts program that offers a variety of programming of independent film video screenings, stage presentations, panel discussions, concerts, art exhibitions and more.
“Mr. Jackson has extensive library management experience and has been the driving force behind the rise of the Langston Hughes Library and Cultural Center into a world-renowned institution of African American scholarship and an important center of learning, literacy and culture in Queens,” Borough President KATZ said. “Mr. Jackson’s life work reflects a dedication to serving communities and will be an invaluable addition to the Queens Library Board of Trustees, which is entrusted with providing sound stewardship to our borough’s top-flight public library system.”
Mr. Jackson retired from his position as Executive Director of the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center in 2016 and is now the institution’s Executive Director Emeritus. He also continues to serve as an adjunct professor in York College/CUNY’s Department of History and Philosophy, where he teaches in the Black Studies Program and the Cultural Diversity Program, and an adjunct professor in Queens College’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies.
Mr. Jackson also served as an advisor to the Wyandanch Public Library in Wyandanch, NY from 2009-2010 and as a training, operations and development consultant for the Roosevelt Public Library in Roosevelt, New York from 2005-2010. He was former President and member of the Executive Board of the American Library Association (ALA)’s Black Caucus, Co-Chair of ALA’s Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunrise Celebration, and member of the ALA Task Force on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
“As someone who has devoted his life to the promotion of literacy and learning and to the betterment of the community, I am thankful that Borough President Katz has appointed me to Queens Library’s Board of Trustees,” Mr. JACKSON said. “I am committed to using my library management experience to ensure that Queens Library is governed with transparency and fiscal soundness. We must continue to provide quality service to the Queens residents who depend upon having access to its vast catalog of books and other media and to its many educational, cultural and community programs.”
Mr. Jackson is also a member of the York College/CUNY President’s Advisory Council, a founding board member of the Corona-East Elmhurst Historic Preservation Society and a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. His previous community service has included terms on the Board of Directors of Queens Public Television, the Community Advisory Board at Elmhurst Hospital Center and the Renaissance Charter School.
Mr. Jackson is a lecturer and public speaker, as well as an author and editor who co-edited the award winning book, The 21st Century Black Librarian in America: Issues and Challenges, and authored Queens Notes: Facts About the Forgotten Borough of Queens, New York. His essay, In The Tradition: The Legacy of Cultural Messengers From Langston Hughes to Tupac Shakur, was published in phati’tude Literary Magazine in 2010. Mr. Jackson also wrote the Foreword to the 9th and 10th editions of The African American Almanac and serves as a contributor to and reviewer of The African American Experience for ABC-CLIO, Inc.
Mr. Jackson served in the United States Air Force from 1964 to 1968, achieving the rank of Staff Sergeant and earning a Bronze Star in 1967 for his service with the 4th Air Commando Squadron in Vietnam.
Mr. Jackson earned a Bachelor of Science degree from York College/CUNY in 1990 and earned a Master of Library Science degree from Queens College in 1996.