A Century of Preserving Black Freedom: Libraries and Archives in the Tradition of Arturo Schomburg

Our season concludes with “A Century of Preserving Black Freedom: Libraries and Archives in the Tradition of Arturo Schomburg,” an online event as part of the Schomburg Center’s centennial celebrations. Laura Helton, author of Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History, will present on the role of Black collectors in the making and preserving of history. Vanessa K. Valdés will discuss the life of one such Black collector and institution-builder, Arturo Schomburg, who she writes about in Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Ethelene Whitmire, author of Regina Anderson Andrews, Harlem Renaissance Librarian, will discuss the life of Andrews, a Harlem Renaissance writer and playwright who was also a longtime librarian at the 135th street library, which later became the Schomburg Center.