What began as a small Harlem library addressing the needs of a changing neighborhood has grown into a world-renowned mecca for Black art and thought.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has its roots in the Harlem Renaissance, one of the richest cultural movements in the nation’s history.
And as it launches into a yearlong celebration of its 100th anniversary, curators and historians are pushing programs focusing on the center’s rich legacy and bright future.
“It is hard to overstate the significance of the Schomburg Center,” said Schomburg Center Director Joy Bivins. “It has provided the evidence scholars and students have needed to understand Black history as global history.”
No time is better than Black History Month to underscore that cultural significance, especially when programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion are under attack from the Trump Administration, supporters of the center said.
But the Schomburg has weathered storms before. The center came of age during the 1920s and 1930s amid the Jim Crow segregation laws of the American South and the Great Migration of African Americans to cities in the North.
The center hit its stride in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement, dramatically increasing membership of patrons curious about their history and place in the American landscape.
Courtesy of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Courtesy of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)
The center survived budget cuts of the 1970s, and threats of budget cuts every decade since, rallying year after year for additional funds and space.
Schomburg supporters said they are not about to let some executive order targeting diversity programs spoil their celebration, or mission.
“We stay true to our commitments and values,” Bivins said. “And the cornerstone of our work is making it clear that libraries are for everyone. That is not going to change. Here, we fulfill one of the most crucial linchpins of democracy — access to knowledge.”
Indeed, a visit to the center is filled with many lessons and artifacts, from the papers of giants Maya Angelou and James Baldwin to the unpublished last chapter of Malcolm X’s consequential autobiography.
Among the items on display at the Schomburg Center, at W. 135th St and Malcolm X Blvd., is a copy of actor Ossie Davis’ 1965 eulogy of Malcolm X, “Black Shining Prince,” rare oral histories of former slaves and a digital archive with links to past exhibits.
“The center and its amazing staff stand as a spectacular gem in The New York Public Library system, and we are excited to celebrate this world-class institution together,” said New York Public Library President Anthony W. Marx.
“The Schomburg Center is beloved by scholars, and is a source of inspiration and materials for everyone seeking knowledge about Black history and culture, as well as a living, breathing center of community life in New York City,” Marx said.
Courtesy of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Inside the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. (Courtesy of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)
What we know as the Schomburg Center began at the New York Public Library’s 135th St. branch. As Harlem grew, a growing population of Black residents sought books and cultural material that reflected their unique history.
Historians point to a trailblazing team of branch librarians including Ernestine Rose and Catherine Latimer — the New York Public Library’s first Black librarian — sought to address the needs of a changing neighborhood.
Latimer and Rose launched a campaign to collect items that documented the Black experience, an undertaking that involved meetings with local activists including James Weldon Johnson, a writer and composer best known for the song “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” widely referred to as the Negro national anthem.
Among the influencers in those meetings was Arturo Schomburg, a Puerto Rican historian of African descent who, as a young child, often wondered about the lack of African history taught in his classrooms, an interest that formed the cornerstone of his lifework of research and preservation.
A sought-after curator, Schomburg joined the library and in 1925 established what would later be called the Division of Negro Literature and History. A year later, Schomburg’s collection was purchased by the Carnegie Corporation for the New York Public Library, an assemblage that would become the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
“Schomburg remains a beacon to those who seek to create spaces that reclaim histories that have often been neglected, marginalized, or ignored,” Bivins. said. “It has also seeded generations of critical scholarship and creativity that help us better understand Black experiences through its commitment to the stewardship of the objects, from text to film, that illustrate how people of African descent have shaped our collective past and continue to impact the present
