The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s Plans for 100th Anniversary

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a national landmark dedicated to the preservation and public access of Black history, announced plans on Tuesday for its year-long centennial celebration.

Highlights include a suite of new public programming, an exhibition that explores its legacy of collecting and creativity, a Centennial Festival, a special edition NYPL library card, and a new Schomburg Curriculum.

The press conference at the famed Harlem institution on 135th Street and Lenox marked the beginning of Black History Month and included Schomburg Director Joy Bivins, NYPL President Tony Marx, US Representative Adriano Espaillat, New York City Council Member Dr. Yusef Salaam and NYPL trustee Aysha E. Schomburg. The celebration also included collection items from Schomburg’s iconic holdings.

The centennial celebration will span from 2025– 2026, commemorating the Schomburg Center’s two founding moments. The first is the May 1925 opening of the Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints at NYPL’s 135th Street branch (which became the Schomburg Center in 1972), followed by the May 1926 purchase of the private collection of bibliophile Arturo Schomburg for $10,000 made possible with the support of the Carnegie Foundation.

In the 100 years since its founding, the Schomburg Center’s archive has grown to include millions of items critical to the documentation of global Black history and culture. From the papers of Maya Angelou and James Baldwin and what is believed to be the first book written by a Black man, to the unpublished last chapter of Malcolm X’s autobiography and the largest institutional holdings of work by artist Augusta Savage, the Schomburg Center makes centuries of Black history and culture accessible to anyone with just a library card.

“It is hard to overstate the significance of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. It has provided the evidence scholars and students have needed to understand Black history as global history,” said Schomburg Center Director Joy Bivins.

“Schomburg remains a beacon to those who seek to create spaces that reclaim histories that have often been neglected, marginalized, or ignored. 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.”

“Created during the Harlem Renaissance, one of the richest cultural movements in our nation’s history, the Schomburg Center is beloved by scholars and 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,” said NYPL President Anthony W. Marx.

“The Schomburg Center’s incredible collection has been essential to the creation of a century of art and literature, fortified research in Black diasporic history, and has been requested for loans in art institutions from Washington D.C. to Paris. 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.”

“The Schomburg Center preserves for everyone the Black history and culture that are core to the DNA of New York and of our culture at large.

But as a pillar of a library system that plays an integral role in the life of the city, the Center goes far beyond preservation, sharing contemporary cultural insights, nurturing curiosity and learning, and creating universal experiences that bridge the distance between past and present—as exemplified by the program for the Centennial Festival,” said Andreas Dracopoulos, Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). “Thank you to the Schomburg Center and NYPL for keeping the beacon of knowledge burning; may it shine as brightly for the next hundred years.”

Schomburg History
What we know as the Schomburg Center began at The New York Public Library’s 135th Street Branch. Migration reshaped cities nationwide and Harlem was no different. As Harlem changed, a growing population of Black residents sought books and other material that reflected their histories and served the flourishing arts, intellectual, and cultural movement, often called the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Movement.

A trailblazing team of librarians stationed in the 135th Street Branch Library—including NYPL pioneers Ernestine Rose and Catherine Latimer (the first Black librarian in the NYPL system)— sought to address the needs in a changing neighborhood. With this in mind, Latimer and Rose launched a campaign to collect items that documented the Black experience.

They met with a committee, which included Arturo Schomburg, James Weldon Johnson, Hubert H. Harrison and John Nail, who recommended that the rarest books be set aside as a reference library. In 1925, The Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints opened as a special collection of the 135th Street Branch Library featuring books and items on the African diaspora.

The following year, The New York Public Library acquired the personal collection of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. His collection included thousands of items, from prints and manuscripts to rare books and pamphlets. Schomburg saw collecting as the assembling of “vindicating evidences” that proved the global presence and contributions of people of African descent.

His lifelong passion for collecting was a direct rebuttal to a teacher’s comment that Black culture lacked major figures and noteworthy history. Today, the division has grown into the Schomburg Center, with a collection that contains more than 11 million items. Across three buildings, five distinct collecting divisions, three exhibition spaces, and two theaters, the Schomburg Center is where Black history is not only accessed, but created.

SCHOMBURG CENTENNIAL EVENTS
On May 8, 2025, Schomburg will open 100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity. This exhibition explores the library’s history through the prism of place, people, and material culture. Featuring objects from each of Schomburg’s divisions, 100 will surround visitors with the sights, sounds, and objects that comprise Schomburg’s historic past.

The Schomburg Center will also kick off a new programming season to honor the research library’s legacy as the country’s leading institution for collecting, preserving, and sharing the histories and cultures of people of African descent.

Among a long lineup of other special-edition programs, the Schomburg Center Centennial Festival will take place on June 14th inside and outside the Center.

The Festival is a blend of the research library’s most anticipated events, the Schomburg Center Literary Festival and the Black Comic Book Festival, in their 7th and 13th years respectively. The Centennial Festival will include musical performances curated by Soapbox Presents and an old-school block party.

The Centennial celebrations will also recognize the incredible devotion and support of patrons past and present including Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin. Explorations of collections and staff contributions will be recognized through special projects and curriculum including the groundbreaking leadership of Jean Blackwell Hutson, Chief of the Schomburg Center from 1948 to 1980.

Hutson is lauded as one of the library professionals who made the Center what it is today, beloved by patrons for being a steadfast and fierce advocate for libraries and Black History studies.

Registration and details to come can be found at schomburg.org/100.