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WITHDRAWN
Recommendation to refer to the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee to consider renaming the Burnett Neighborhood Library, located at 560 East Hill Street, Long Beach, "Bobbie Smith Neighborhood Library" and report back to City Council with recommendation.
DISCUSSION
The original Burnett Library was established in a classroom of Burnett Elementary School in the early 1900's. It was transferred over to the City of Long Beach and moved to its current location at 560 E. Hill Street in 1924.
On September 2, 2014, the Long Beach Unified School District Board renamed the Peter H. Burnett Elementary School in honor of Bobbie Smith. It is requested that the City of Long Beach stay in stream with the renaming of the school and rename Burnett Neighborhood Library in honor of Bobbie Smith.
Mrs. Smith is a pioneer paving the way for African American's within the educational system. Bobbie was the first African American Librarian hired at Long Beach City College in 1970. She served there for 22 years. For the last ten years, she served as the head of the Department. She was the first African American President of the Academic Senate. She retired in 1992.
Bobbie is very active in the Long Beach community. In the 1970s, she was a founding member of the African American Infant Health Advisory Committee that worked for a number of years with low income women to improve the birth weight of newborn babies. They were successful in getting women to seek medical attention in the early stages of their pregnancy so that the birth weight of their newborns was improved and that infant deaths were decreased by as much as 25 percent.
In 1986, she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Theta Alpha Omega Chapter in Long Beach. Bobbie was elected to the governing board of California's third largest public school district, Long Beach Unified School District, in 1988. She represented District 2, which included West and Central Long Beach. She is the first Afri...
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