Biden honors 'pretty cool' Jacksonville native with National Humanities Medal

At 86, renowned educator, social activist and Jacksonville native Johnnetta Betsch Cole has received enough awards to fill a room. Now President Joe Biden has given her another honor, a particularly prestigious one.

Cole was awarded the 2021 National Humanities Medal on Tuesday as one of 12 "individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities and broadened our citizens’ engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy and other humanities," according to The White House.

She was among them "for being a celebrated leader of sanctuaries of higher learning and culture. A scholar, anthropologist and academic pace-setter, Johnnetta Betsch Cole’s pioneering work about the ongoing contributions of Afro-Latin, Caribbean and African communities have advanced American understanding of Black culture and the necessity and power of racial inclusion in our nation," according to the White House.

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Another 12 people received the 2021 National Medal of the Arts. Both groups of honorees received their awards about two years late due to a backlog caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The day after the ceremony, Cole said she was "still in the clouds" from being in such an esteemed crowd.

"My heart is just overflowing with gratitude," she said. "It was an out-of-body experience."

But she accepted the medal, as she does any honor, recognizing that "we've still got a lot of work to do" in the realm of social activism, she said. "Retirement is not in my vocabulary."

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She said she was blown away by the other high-powered honorees who joined her at the White House.

"Gladys Knight … Bruce Springsteen, Amy Tan, Vera Wang," she said. "Extraordinary figures in American arts."

Cole has a bachelor of arts degree in sociology and master's and doctoral degrees in anthropology. She spent two years in Liberia, West Africa, for her dissertation field research in anthropology and later taught at four colleges where she helped develop African studies programs.

In 1987 she was named the first African American woman as president of Spelman College and later as president of Bennett College, making her the only person to serve as president of both historically Black colleges for women in the United States. She served as director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art and as president of the National Council of Negro Women in Washington, where she met Biden when he was vice president under President Barack Obama.

At the medal ceremony, Biden introduced Cole as "an anthropologist, the first Black woman president of Spelman College — pretty cool — and the director of the National Museum of African Art."

"Johnnetta … takes the study of Black history and culture to new heights. She has strengthened American education, advanced American scholarship and enriched the lives of students of all ages and the future of our nation," he said.

Cole is also an author and speaker about civil rights, diversity, equity and inclusion. She had a role model in great-grandfather A.L. Lewis, who with only an elementary school education helped found the Afro-American Life Insurance Co. in Jacksonville in 1901 and became Florida’s first African American millionaire.

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In 1935 he and his business partners co-founded American Beach in Nassau County as a vacation destination for African Americans during the days of segregation. In 2022, Cole and her husband, J.D. Staton, after living all across the country then settling in Fernandina Beach, moved into a new retirement home in American Beach.

Her late sister, MaVynee Betsch, an opera singer-turned historian, activist and environmentalist known as "The Beach Lady," led a longtime effort to save what was left of American Beach from development. That effort also led to the site's listing on the National Register of Historic Places and the founding of the museum.

The Betsch family are descendants of plantation owner Zephaniah Kingsley and his African-born wife, Anna Madgigine Jai, once a slave who ran a cotton plantation at Fort George Island in Duval County.

Cole has made Jacksonville proud, said Mari Kuraishi, president of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund.

"Johnnetta Cole is a Jaxson through and through — tracing her lineage not just back to A.L. Lewis … but to Anna Zephaniah Kingsley, owner of the Kingsley Plantation," she said. "And among living Jaxsons, she might well lay claim to having accomplished more for the country and the world in her life than any other. It makes me so incredibly happy to see her being nationally recognized, but also to know that she is here, back in Jacksonville."

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, director and CEO of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, agreed.

"Dr. Cole often reminds me that Jacksonville is in many ways unrecognizable from when she left here at age 15," Brownlee said. "She also explains that returning to Jacksonville enables her to defy Thomas Wolfe and affirm that you can 'go home again.' The world applauds her extraordinary contributions … All the while, we as residents of the First Coast are bursting with pride and celebrate the national treasure who resides in our midst."

Other Humanities Medal recipients were Richard Blanco, Walter Isaacson, Earl Lewis, Henrietta Mann, Ann Patchett, Bryan Stevenson, Tara Westover, Colson Whitehead and Native America Calling. For more information about them, go to neh.gov/news/2021-national-humanities-medals.

"The National Humanities Medal recipients have enriched our world through writing that moves and inspires us; scholarship that enlarges our understanding of the past; and through their dedication to educating, informing, and giving voice to communities and histories often overlooked," said Shelly Lowe, chairwoman of the National Endowment of the Humanities. "I am proud to join President Biden in recognizing these distinguished leaders for their outstanding contributions to our nation’s cultural life."

Recipients of the Medal of the Arts, the highest award given to artists, art patrons and groups that have advanced the arts in America, were Judith Francisca Baca, Fred Eychaner, Jose Feliciano, Mindy Kaling, Knight, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Antonio Martorell-Cardona, Joan Shigekawa, Springsteen, Wang, the Billie Holiday Theatre and the International Association of Blacks in Dance. For more information about them, go to arts.gov/news/press-releases/2023/president-biden-award-national-medals-arts.

National Endowment for the Arts chairwoman Maria Rosario Jackson said they "have helped to define and enrich our nation’s cultural legacy through their lifelong passionate commitment. We are a better nation because of their contributions. Their work helps us see the world in different ways. It inspires us to reach our full potential and recognize our common humanity."

bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Biden honors Jacksonville's Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Gladys Knight, more