The New York Public Library (NYPL) Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem will be 100 and marks the opportunity with a year -old series of centenary Programs that explore its history, including an exhibition of collection porters and a Centennial Festival and Block Party.
“This institution already exists during segregation, several movements, civil rights movements, work movements and terrible economies,” said Joy Bivins, director of the center, said Hyperallergic During a press conference today, Tuesday 4 February. “Black history is our lifeblood. We don’t wait to celebrate, and we don’t ask for people’s permission to celebrate. “
In 1940 after Arturo Schomburg, a Puerto Ricanian born in Puerto and collector of black literature and diasporic material, the institution was founded in May 1925 as NYPL’s division of black history and literature. The following year, the Schomburg’s collection of approximately 3,000 parts, 1,100 pamphlets and countless prints and manuscripts related to Black literature, art and stories from people made slave.
A hundred years later, the Schomburg Center will show a selection of rare and remarkable items from the now 11 million item collection in an exhibition as part of 100: A century of collections, community and creativityOpening May 8.
A Centennial Festival will also take place on June 14, where the institution will combine its annual Black Comic Book Festival, Schomburg Center Literary Festival, Block Party and Music Performance.
The center will also announce a series of extra interactive programming, including conversations, versions and impressions at a later time.
During Tuesday’s press conference, NYPL President and CEO Anthony Marx referred to the consequences of the major attacks on diversity initiatives in recent weeks.
“We live in a moment when that history, when the history of the essential peoples of America, including such a way the African people … are pushed aside, when our obligations diversity, fairness and inclusion are threatened,” said Marx.
United States representative Adriano Espaillat, who was also present, described De Schomburg as “a center of black culture that should be simulated by the rest of the country, if not the world.”
District 9 City Councilor Yusef Salaam, who was once convicted and acquitted as part of the “Central Park Jogger” case and now represents Harlem, Morningside Heights and Manhattan Valley, noticed that the Schomburg has always been a “part” of Black intellectual and artistic excellence. “
“It has kept the voices of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X and Toni Morrison,” said Salaam, “and it will continue to strengthen the voices of those who form our future.”
