Latest news with #JoyBivins
CBS News
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Harlem's Schomburg Center prepares to open its exhibition celebrating 100 years
Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is celebrating 100 years of service to the community by displaying some of its more than 11 million pieces of African American history. In just a few days, exhibition 100 - A Century of Collections, Community and Creativity will open to the public on Malcolm X Boulevard. One hundred years of collecting some of the world's most exquisite artifacts at the Schomburg Center have all led up to it. CBS News New York "This is who we are. This is who we have been for 100 years, and this exhibition really celebrates that," Schomburg Center Director Joy Bivins said. "So, there's a great deal of art, fine art, that's on display, not only in this gallery but in galleries throughout the building." "They are icons of our collections" For the first time ever, viewers can be up close and personal with murals by artist Aaron Douglas created specifically for the Schomburg Center. CBS News New York "They are icons of our collections, but they're also really important to the study of Black art history," Bivins said. There are rooms filled with a fraction of the 11 million pieces of history housed at the library. Workers are still setting things up ahead of the opening. The cosmogram at the Schomburg Center. CBS News New York The Schomburg Center is also introducing a commemorative 100 year library card featuring the cosmogram, a piece of art installed in the floor. Beneath the cosmogram is the grave of poet Langston Hughes. "Within that cosmogram is the poem 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers.' And so this is really a way to take a piece of Schomburg with you," Bivins said. Exhibit opens Thursday The exhibit opens to the public May 8. "We emerge from a moment when it's not thought that there is Black history, and all of these things stand in as evidence that that is a falsehood," Bivins said. The research institute was started by Arturo Schomburg and Catherine Latimer. Latimer was the first Black woman hired by the New York Public Library. The Schomburg Center is hosting a full schedule of events all year long in honor of its centennial. To learn more, click here.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NYC's Schomburg Center celebrating 100 years of Black culture art, history
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. 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. 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
