Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Was Founded by a Puerto Rican

Programs

Schomburg Center programs include:

• Women’s Jazz Festival is usually in March.
• Black Comic Book Festival is usually in April.
• Schomburg Center Literary Festival is usually in June.
• Open House is usually in November.

About

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.

Schomburg moved to New York in 1891, continued his research, and began collecting and 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.

You are a collector like Mr. Schomburg.”

Schomburg Center publicist describing New York Latin Culture Magazine Editor, Keith Widyolar.

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