Posts from Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

As Hollywood films about the passage of the 13th Amendment go, Lincoln is certainly the best one ever made! There really aren't any others. I saw it with my sons, sixth and 12th graders in Brooklyn public schools. They loved the film and saw it as an exciting movie about American history. Would they recommend it to other kids, I asked. "Yes," they agreed, "Lincoln is a movie that all students should see."

I agree Lincoln is a great film. But it's not perfect.

Digital Schomburg's online exhibitions on various aspects of the black experience have truly become a global phenomenon. They are attracting visitors from all over the world. From Argentina to Zimbabwe and Montenegro and the Maldives in between. What do they know that perhaps you don't?

As a young girl growing up in Jamaica — and later in Brooklyn, NY — I often heard the poetry of Louise Bennett (Jamaicans affectionately call her "Miss Lou") permeate the air. One of my earliest recollections of Miss Lou’s lyricism was hearing the term mout amassi (big mouth). The term comes from the title of one of her most popular poems about a young lady, Liza, who loves to gossip and chat.

April is National Poetry Month, and I promised myself to read a poem a day. Some poets of the black experience immediately came to mind: Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Claude McKay, Sonia Sanchez, Audrey Lorde, to name a few. But then I decided to venture unto new territory and immerse myself into recent works.

July 31, 1761: The French ship l'Utile, illegally transporting 160 Africans from Madagascar to Ile de France (Mauritius), approaches Sand Island. Because the captain worries about a potential revolt, he orders the hatches to be nailed shut. In the night, the ship runs into a reef and capsizes. 

What follows is, arguably, the most extraordinary story of survival ever documented.

Few people in the West have heard international superstar Akon's new hit. But tens of millions throughout the rest of the world have been dancing to Chammak Challo for weeks. Why? Because the catchy tune is the musical centerpiece of the latest Bollywood sci-fi blockbuster Ra. One, whose (super) hero is no other than Shahrukh Khan, the most popular actor in the (rest of) the world. That Akon, a Senegalese, sings in Hindi will come as a surprise to many, but not to Africans. They have been singing Bollywood tunes in Hindi for 60 years.

The capture last week of Saif al-Islam Qaddafi who, disguised as a Tuareg, was trying to flee to Niger — where one of his brothers and some high-ranking officials have found refuge — has turned a spotlight on a country few people have heard of.

“Niger? You mean Nigeria?” No Niger, the largest country in West Africa. “The country of the Nigerians?” No, the country of the Nigeriens.

I have visited Niger several times and always came back with wonderful memories... and exceptional crafts. It is one of the most fascinating places I know.

Sannu (hello) Niger!

On November 16, Nikky Finney received the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry for her book Head Off & Split. Political, sensual, historical, imaginative, Finney’s poems speak of struggle, beauty, love, and race with passion and tenderness. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, where she has been teaching for several years, congratulates her on her wonderful achievement.

“The writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future.”

Nigerian environmentalist, author, and television producer Ken Saro-Wiwa lived and died by the words above. Born on October 10, 1941, Kenule “Ken” Beeson Saro Wiwa was an Ogoni (an ethnic minority in Nigeria). Ogoniland, located in the Niger Delta, is rich in oil that has been looted by the petroleum industry — with the explicit consent of the Nigerian government — for decades. As a result, the Niger Delta is listed as one 

I had not slept for 34 hours. After a bad flight and two long bus trips, I was hiking, ecstatic, in a muddy mine. I touched the walls from top to bottom. Perhaps “he” had put his hands there too. I was walking in the steps of Galanga, renamed Francisco, and known as Chico Rei (King Chico).

In 1831, Omar ibn Said, a Senegalese trader and Qur'anic teacher enslaved in North Carolina, wrote his autobiography in Arabic. It is the only known surviving slave narrative written in that language in the Americas. On October 13, at 6pm at the Schomburg Center, Yale Professor Ala Alryyes will present A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said, which features a new translation of the document, a commentary, and contextual essays by five scholars. Omar's original manuscript will be on display.

Toussaint Louverture, about 1795
(NYPL Digital Gallery)Use the resources of NYPL to engage your students with the rich and complex history of African Americans. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has several online exhibitions that make NYPL resources easily accessible and usable in your classroom: 

In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience: http://www.inmotionaame.org/home.cfm

Michael Jackson’s sudden and tragic death has revealed the truly iconic status he had achieved in the world. While some of the news media has chosen to continually harp on what they have labeled as Michael’s eccentricities, especially what they have called his bizarre appearance and behavior over the last few years, his 40 years of unbroken creativity and musical genius have secured his enduring iconic status in the minds of an adoring global public.

The New York Public Library, especially the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, joins millions of Americans in honoring the pioneering, purposeful, immensely productive life of Dr. John Hope Franklin (1915–2009). The preeminent scholar of the African American experience, he was a leading authority on Southern American history, a distinguished educator, and an uncompromising advocate for equality and justice in American society.

A New York Public Library Lion (2007), a co-chair of the Schomburg Center's first private fundraising campaign, member of the Schomburg Center's National Advisory Council, and recipient of the Schomburg Center's Africana Heritage Award 

They are all topics of programs or workshops for adults coming up at various New York Public Library locations over the next few months!

Leg warmers will be knitted at the Chatham Square Library in Chinatown. Wakefield Library in the north Bronx will host a useful series of free food preparation workshops by Cornell University Cooperative Extension Program. St. George Library Center on Staten Island will be the place to meet 6 wrestling champions, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem will present a live screening of the 2009 Inauguration Ceremony.

And there are over 400 other free programs and classes for adults listed. Flamenco, English Sword