AFRICA

     African peoples created and controlled their
own histories and developed their own cultures
and societies prior to the 15th century.  The
transatlantic slave trade (15th-19th centuries)
and the European colonization of Africa disrupted
the traditional internal processes of historical,
social and cultural change on the continent.  As
late as 1939, European power and prowess in
colonial Africa appeared to be invincible.
World War II destroyed the myth of white supremacy
and European invincibility. It also ushered in the
process of decolonization as Africans at home and
abroad launched or accelerated their independence
movements.  By the mid-1960s, colonialism was
virtually dead.  Independent African societies
have grappled with the legacies of the slave
trade and European colonization since that time.

     Knowledge of Africa -- its geography, its
history, its culture -- has been largely
suppressed and distorted since the beginning of
the slave trade.  The diversity and complexity of
its cultures and societies have not been
appreciated.  The profundity of its religious
and philosophical beliefs has been misrepresented.
The quality of its achievements in science, the
arts and society-building has been undervalued.

     The continent of Africa is three times the
size of the United States.  Modern scholarship
has also established that humankind, as we know
it, had its origins on the continent.  So did
the major world religions -- Christianity, Islam
and Judaism.  Continental Africans pioneered in
the development of complex societies, science,
philosophy and the arts.  Four centuries before
the birth of Christ, African civilizations
flourished in the Nile Valley.

     Whereas collection development efforts
during Schomburg's time focussed on
strengthening the Center's African art holdings
and acquiring published literature on its
pre-slave past, especially the history of the
great African civilizations, modern efforts
have sought to acquire documentation on all
aspects of African history and culture,
especially the colonial and post-colonial
eras.  The Center subscribes to hundreds of
African newspapers and journals.  It has
acquired, in microform, historic records held
by European colonial archives and American
government agencies.  Documentary records on
the impact of the slave trade in Africa have
also been sought.  Research collections on
the decolonization process such as the Central
Africa Project Collection have been acquired,
as have strong collections on the
anti-apartheid struggle in Southern Africa.