Schomburg Center Awarded $2 Million Mellon Foundation Grant To Strengthen Access to Black Studies Resources

Feb 3, 2022  - The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has received a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation — the nation’s largest funder of the arts, culture, and humanities — which will be used to further the research of global Black Studies. Since 1996, the Mellon Foundation has awarded more than $9 million to the Center for projects that provide open access to scholarly materials, make accessible research on African Diasporic History, and support technological advancements. 

The latest grant will fund “The Next Century Of Black Studies”, which aims to build the institution’s capacity to meet the needs of the next generation of scholars, students, and patrons. 

The project will increase the Center’s capacity, support the creation of an advisory panel of scholars to reimagine opportunities from collecting, and engage the public in programming about the future of global Black studies. 

“Support from the Mellon Foundation will bear fruit for decades to come as we endeavor to envision the next 100 years of this institution,” said Joy Bivins, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. “The Next Century of Black Studies is a key building block of critical resources needed for the Schomburg Center’s future, ensuring that we remain at the vanguard of the discipline.”

As the Schomburg Center prepares to commemorate its 100th anniversary, the Mellon Foundation’s support of “The Next Century of Black Studies” will also inform advancements to usher in another 100 years of the institution’s work in collecting, preserving, and sharing the culture and history of the African diaspora.

 

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.

 

About the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Founded in 1925 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2017, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the preservation, research, interpretation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diasporan, and African experiences. As a research division of The New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center features diverse programming and collections totaling over 11 million items that illuminate the richness of global black history, arts, and culture. Learn more at schomburgcenter.org.

 

About The New York Public Library

For over 125 years, The New York Public Library has been a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With over 90 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library receives approximately 16 million visits through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.