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Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was Founded by a Puerto Rican Art Collector

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The Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a New York Public Library research library.

It was founded on the personal collection of the Black Arts that Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg collected during the Harlem Renaissance. 🇵🇷

This is one of New York’s sacred grounds, where greatness begins.

Schomburg Center programs include:

  • Black Comic Book Festival (usually April)
  • Schomburg Center Literary Festival (usually June)
  • Women’s Jazz Festival (usually March)

You are a collector like Mr. Schomburg.”

Schomburg center publicist speaking to New York Latin Culture Magazine Editor-in-Chief, Keith Widyolar.

Schomburg Center News

The Schomburg Story

Schomburg was born in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1874. A grade school teacher told him that Black people have no history, heroes or accomplishments. That ignorant nonsense from another era inspired the young man to prove his teacher wrong. He became a commercial printer and began to study Black literature. He moved to New York in 1891 and began collecting.

In New York, the young man continued his research and began writing. He joined some of the first scholarly organizations for people of color. Schomburg was one of the scholars of the Harlem Renaissance (1918 to mid-1930s).

The New York Public Library purchased the Schomburg collection in 1926, made him its founding curator and renamed the 135th St Branch Library after him. He died in 1938 and is buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Not many people get libraries named after them, and certainly no uncultured ones. Mr. Schomburg proved that old teacher wrong. Some people say mean things just to make you upset so you can’t progress. Instead of doing your thing, you start spinning in an identity crisis. It’s the colonizer’s game, but don’t play the game. Ignore it, go to the library and develop yourself.

Today we all follow in the footsteps of people like Mr. Schomburg who refused to be put down and held back. He is a great Puerto Rican, a great African American, a great New Yorker, but really just a great American, an inspiration for all generations.

[We met one of his great-grandaughters in Santurce, Puerto Rico. What a great family!]

Schomburg Center Tickets

Many events are free and open to the public.

Schomburg Center
515 Malcolm X Blvd
(between 135th and 136th St)
Harlem, Manhattan

Subways
(2)(3) to 135th St

nypl.org

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