The year 2020 was something no one expected. Words such as “social distancing” and “personal protective equipment” (PPE) entered the vernacular as New York City—and the rest of the nation— worked to slow the spread of COVID-19. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture temporarily closed its doors to the public and shifted its services to an all-digital format as a safety precaution.

The deaths of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and George Floyd in Minneapolis by the police led to increased attention to injustices against Black and Brown people. A new generation of activists led peaceful uprisings, continuing the centuries-long struggle for equality. Books written by authors across the African Diaspora sparked meaningful conversations on race. Plus, frontline and essential workers received renewed appreciation for their work.

As the learning continues, explore the Schomburg Center’s digital collections, research guides, and reading recommendations for a deeper understanding of the history, literature, and culture of the Black experience.

PROTESTS

Libraries such as the Schomburg Center focus on research and materials on the African Diaspora. This summer, librarians Allison Hughes, Matthew Murphy, and Bridgett Pride created the Arturo (Arthur) Schomburg Research Guide. It features improved access to more than 3,500 books, pamphlets, and manuscripts from Mr. Schomburg's seed library. He sold the materials to NYPL in 1926.

“While Schomburg is primarily known as a book collector, he was also a prolific writer, and his essays and letters on Black history, culture, and politics appeared in many newspapers and periodicals of his day,” Hughes said.

One of the guide’s highlights includes links to detailed illustrations and portraits from books in Mr. Schomburg's collection. Titles include Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities, Men of Mark, The Negro in Business, and Souvenir of Negro Progress: Chicago, 1779-1925.

Additionally, a link to HathiTrust allows researchers to read digital reproductions of books similar to the ones Mr. Schomburg owned.

"Both sections of the guide are really helpful in understanding Mr. Schomburg's lifelong contributions to the study of the African Diaspora," Murphy said.

Mr. Schomburg’s act of collecting materials documenting people of African descent's history and achievements served as a quiet rebellion against people who believed Black people made no contribution or had no place in history.

Decades later, his foresight paved the way for the Schomburg Collection, becoming one of the research centers of The New York Public Library in 1972 and named the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

“Black protest has changed and evolved with technology, but our message has always been the same: Black Lives Matter,” said Pride, creator of the LibGuide By Any Means Necessary: Documenting Black Protest in the Schomburg Center  and co-creator of the Arturo (Arthur) Schomburg Research guide.

This LibGuide provides suggested readings, names collections, and recommends exhibitions. The guide also lists websites that share tips on protesting safely, documenting the experience, and exercising your legal rights.

“By providing the evidence of this fight for survival across centuries and borders, I hope that our researchers will be empowered by the strength and resilience of our ancestors, and recognize that our fight is far from over,” Pride added.

Quotes from activists such as Malcolm X and Assata Shakur offer inspiration and frame the righteousness of the calls for justice and equality.

PROSE

The Black Liberation Reading List captures the activism, joys, pains, challenges, and triumphs of the Black experience. The reading recommendations focus on Black writers and those whose personal papers are in the Schomburg Center’s collections. The Center’s curators and staff selected the 95 titles—in honor of the Schomburg’s 95th anniversary—which sparked meaningful conversations with people of all ages and races.

Titles on the list have received over 71,000 checkouts from NYPL since its release in June. Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me were the top three checkouts of the year from this list, respectively. The popularity of the list inspired book picks for kids and teens.

PHOTOS

Doctors and nurses, who arguably spend the most time helping people who have fallen ill to COVID-19, received renewed attention and accolades for their work this year.

Images from The Lincoln School for Nurses Photographs collection shows some of the caregivers who have been on the frontlines assisting patients from the mid-1800s to the early 1970s.

As coronavirus spread and companies closed their doors, maintenance, grocery store, and utility workers continued working which allowed the cities and states to continuing running. The Occupations photo collection highlights blue-and white-collar workers who kept the country strong during World War II and the post-war years. Photographs span the 1900–1990s.

CONTINUED PROGRESS

The Schomburg Center launched programming for The Ella Baker Initiative earlier this year. Its mission is to inspire civic engagement in the tradition of its namesake. Funded by Pivotal Ventures, its work includes engaging the public and exploring the fight for suffrage and civil rights from various historical perspectives and ages using the Schomburg Center’s collections.

Baker’s organizing skills and her knack for engaging young people to participate in the Civil Rights Movement made her a go-to person for activists such as A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King , Jr. The Schomburg Center holds the Ella Baker Papers.

In October, the initiative held Lifting As We Climb: Black Women’s Battle at the Ballot Box, an intergenerational discussion on activism between Evette Dionne, author of Lifting as We Climb, and Jillian Peprah-Frimpong and Maya Scriven, alumni of the Schomburg Center’s Teen Curators program.

“The community conversation was modeled after Ella Baker's insightful and radical coordinating efforts of SNCC,” said Zenzele Johnson, manager of the Ella Baker Initiative. “She made space for younger generations to be central in the fight for freedom, to engage with the hard questions, to propel the work in a way that didn’t succumb to the pressure of surrendering to way things were, but for building the world they wanted to see from the root.”

You can watch a clip where Peprah-Frimpong’s and Scriven’s answer Dionne’s question on what millennials would like to see from older generations as they take part in the continued struggle for racial justice and equality.

To see the full conversation, visit the Schomburg Center's Livestream channel.