Last week, blackenterprise.com reported that Johnetta B. Cole has taken on yet another role that will influence the lives of black people. On Monday, she began her new job as director of the Smithsonian’s Museum of African Art. This lady, goes from strength to strength impacting our lives as she goes about her business. And I don’t mean to gush but I am simply in awe of her. I envy the young women who got to be in her direct sphere of influence during her tenure as President at both Spelman and Bennett Colleges. I hope they realize how lucky they were to have the chance to sit at her feet.
Cole was most recently head of the Johnetta B. Cole Global Diversity and Inclusion Institute at Bennett in Greensboro, NC where she oversaw the organization’s mission to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace (yet another thing we so desperately need). Now she will be schooling people around the world about the African Diaspora and the art that has been created there as well as raising money to subsidize that work.
But what I like most about Cole is her realness. Whether it is one of her books like, “Conversations: Straight Talk From America’s Sister President “ to an essay that she wrote in Bonnie St. John’s book, “How Strong Women Pray, to the way she speaks and interacts with us, Cole never fails to inspire. A lot of successful black women are disengaged from the community as well as other sisters—which creates isolation and missed opportunities to share their experiences. Cole, however, demonstrates the power that can be ours when we give of ourselves and encourage one another.
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