The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's digital collections include manuscripts, maps, photographs, recorded conversations, digital exhibitions, and more.

Over 1,000 collections reside in NYPL's Digital Collections and over 300 recorded programs are located on the Center’s Livestream channel.

Can't decide which collections or talks to explore first?

Novella Ford, associate director of Public Programs and Exhibitions, share her picks from the Livestream channel. For the last five years, Ford has developed and produced the discussions, performances, open houses, and festivals, located in this archive.

AGRICULTURAL RESISTANCE AND LAND RECLAMATION

Overview: Dr. Monica White, author of Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement, and Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, discussed their work with Therese Nelson, chef, historian, and founder of Black Culinary History in 2019.

Why: “Dr. Monica White at the onset of the conversation shares words from an activist who said ‘You can free yourself if you can feed yourself,’ which I think about every day and every time I encounter a farmers' market or an urban garden,” Ford said. “The discussion between these scholars and practitioners is a reminder of how land has been the birthright of Black people around the globe. It deftly connects the power of land and food to social justice and healing.”

BUT THEN YOU READ BALDWIN

Overview: In celebration of acquiring the biographical sketches, correspondence, interviews, awards, travel records, and fan mail on James Baldwin, the Schomburg Center, held a daylong read of his works honoring their beauty, brilliance, and scope in 2017. Participants included Kevin Young, then director of the Schomburg Center, Rev. Michael A. Walrond, Ngozi Anyanwu, Lil Buck, LeRonn Brooks, PhD, and more.

Why: “James Baldwin's audacity is infectious and that is what you hear through listening to his words and his influence on activists, scholars, preachers, and cultural workers,” Ford said. “His audacity coaxes us to be ‘freer and more loving.’"

ARTIST AND THE ARCHIVE: THE ART OF THE SLAVE SHIP ICON

Overview: Dr. Cheryl Finley discussed her book Committed to Memory: The Art of the Slave Ship Icon, the first in-depth study of the epochal image associated with slavery, with Dr. Nicole Fleetwood, professor of American Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in 2019.

Why: “In this discussion of Cheryl Finley's Committed to Memory, Drs. Finley and Fleetwood, demonstrate how archives can be transformed in the hands of artists and provide a new entry point for engaging history.”

THEATER TALKS: TARELL ALVIN MCCRANEY & DONJA LOVE WITH MICHAEL D. DINWIDDIE

Overview: In 2018, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue on which the film Moonlight was based, and 2018 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award recipient Donja R. Love discussed the impact of Black LGBTQ voices in theater with New York University Professor Michael D. Dinwiddie.

Why: “The present and future of theater are front and center as these playwrights discuss honing their craft and writing themselves into the American narrative,” Ford said. “Tarell and Donja illuminate their connections to queerness, colorism, spirituality, Toni Morrison, Greek and African mythology, Zora Neal Hurston, and more!”

To see more conversations, explore the Schomburg Center’s Livestream archive.

Return to Recommended by the Schomburg Center’s main page.

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