Category: Prestigious People

Ntozake Shange Collection

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

(Source: Barnard College, Media Relations, Press Release, April 14, 2016)

Poet, playwright, novelist and black feminist Ntozake Shange’s, Ph.D., earliest work can be traced back to the late 1960s when she was in high school.  This foundational work along with an early drafts of the Obie Award-winning play, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” and many others are a part of the significant collection acquired by the Barnard Library Archives and Special Collections.

Shange, Barnard College class of 1970 and former fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, decided she wanted her collection to be maintained at the College because it’s where all of her formative artistic, political and intellectual experiences took place.

“I feel as though I came of age as a feminist and an artist at Barnard.  I formed the basis of my critical thinking in English and history classes. I was a member of conscious-raising groups, the antiwar movement and black-student movement.  I got all that I ever imagined from an all-women’s college, and I thought my archives belonged here,” Shange said.

The 31-linear-foot collection tells the story of Shange’s life and career and focuses on issues of race and feminism.  Items range from personal diaries, a quill pen and personal artwork to a photo album from the poetic narrative, “The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of African American Family” and a typescript manuscript of “Some Sing, Some Cry.”

“We are so incredibly grateful to have such a significant collection where scholars can view personal photos, letters, and annotated books that influenced her work next to published poetry and artwork to literally trace the life of a dynamic writer, like Dr. Shange,” Shannon O’Neill, Barnard College associate director of Archives and Special Collections, said.

For more information about Barnard College and the Shange collection, contact Media Relations at mediarelations@barnard.edu or 212-854-2037.

Rare Copy of David Walker’s Appeal

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

(Source:  Press release, Emory News Center, Tuesday, March 7, 2016)

A rare first edition of David Walker’s 19th century anti-slavery book, “Appeal,” owned and signed by W.E.B. Du Bois, has been obtained by Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, with a generous grant from the B.H. Breslauer Foundation and additional support from other individuals.

Written and published in 1829 in Boston by Walker, a self-educated African American merchant, “Appeal” is considered one of the most important documents in African American history. Its full title is “Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles, Together with A Preamble to the Colored Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly to Those of the United States of America.”

Only half a dozen copies of early editions of “Appeal” are known to exist, and only two known first editions can be found in libraries, according to the Rose Library’s curator of research Randall Burkett.

The first edition at Emory is stamped with Du Bois’ ownership signature on the title page, and his holograph signature is on the front fly. The book also contains Du Bois’ extensive marginal markings.

“One of the most compelling aspects of this work is that it addresses some of the questions that continue to challenge us today,” says Rosemary Magee, director of the Rose Library.

Kevin Young, curator of literary collections and of the Rose Library’s Danowski Poetry Library, echoed that sentiment in a comment to The New York Times. “The book is testament to a line of black protest and prophecy that stretches from Walker to Du Bois to #blacklivesmatter,” he said. “Seeing it and the markings it’s almost as if Du Bois’s lines in the text make that literal.”

In his autobiography, “Dusk of Dawn,” Du Bois called Walker’s “Appeal” “that tremendous indictment of slavery,” recognizing its importance as the first “program of organized opposition to the action and attitude of the dominant white group.”

According to the late American historian Herbert Aptheker, “Walker’s ‘Appeal’ is the first sustained written assault upon slavery and racism to come from a black man in the United States.” The publication was considered so radical and revolutionary in its call to arms that even abolitionists condemned it as inflammatory.

“The book itself is a landmark of political protest and eloquent articulation of the demand for freedom for people of African descent in the United States,” says Pellom McDaniels III, curator of African American Collections in the Rose Library. “It is as important for African American political and social history as Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’; it is a demand for freedom and a call to arms.”

To view complete article, go to Emory acquires anti-slavery “Appeal”

Rosa Parks Archive

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

Source: By Jennifer Schuessler, ArtsBeat, New York Times, February 25, 2016 12:01 am

The Library of Congress has digitized the papers of Rosa Parks, enabling free online access to everything from her first-hand recollections of the Montgomery bus boycott and personal correspondence with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to family photographs, tax returns and a handwritten recipe for “featherlite pancakes.”

(To view entire article visit here: Library of Congress Puts Rosa Parks Archives Online.)

Manning Marable Book Collection

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

(Source: John Jay College of Criminal Justice, John Jay News, October 4, 2015)

The family of the late Dr. Manning Marable, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who received an honorary doctorate from John Jay College in 2006, has donated his collection of authored books to John Jay’s Prison-to-College Pipeline initiative at the upstate Otisville Correctional Facility (New York).

Marable, who died in April 2011 at age 60, was a professor of African-American studies at Columbia University. He had informed his family that one of his passing wishes was to make his work available to incarcerated individuals. John Jay’s work in educating incarcerated people made it an appropriate choice for receiving the bequest.

Marable was the M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African American Studies and professor of history and public affairs at Columbia University. He was founding director of African American Studies at Columbia from 1993 to 2003, and directed Columbia’s Center for Contemporary Black History. The author of fifteen books, Marable was also the editor of Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society.   His last book, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, was published shortly after his death to great acclaim, and earned him the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in History.

To view complete article go to Book Collection of late Historian Manning Marable Donated

Emmett Till

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

(Source:  by Devin Galetta, Florida State 24/7,  University Communications, Florida State University, September 25, 2015 press release)

 The Florida State University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives Division and Professor Davis W. Houck will establish what will become the foremost research collection on the life and death of Emmett Till, an African-American teenager whose murder in Mississippi in 1955 sparked protest in the South.

Till’s death helped galvanize the civil rights movement in America, and Friday, Aug. 28, marks the 60th anniversary of his murder. Till, 14, was kidnapped, beaten and shot after he allegedly flirted with a white woman.

 “We’re very excited for this project because there is just simply nothing like it,” said Houck, a faculty member in the College of Communication and Information who authored “Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press.” “We’ve spent 20 years accumulating this material, most of which involved travel to Mississippi and archives around the South. It’s long past due that we had a ‘one-stop-archive’ for all things Emmett Till, and with this collection, we’ll finally have that.”

The collection will feature newspaper coverage from the Till murder trial and court proceedings by domestic and international press, and materials from FBI investigations, court records and interview transcripts.

Author Devery Anderson will contribute a comprehensive collection of newspaper articles, genealogical work, interview transcriptions and obscure magazine articles used to write his recently released book, “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement.” Anderson’s research not only tells the story of the Till case as it unfolded in 1955, but follows the case to the present day, incorporating the FBI’s investigation and source materials, including a complete trial transcript.

Interviews and oral histories gathered by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp for his Emmy-nominated documentary, “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,” will also comprise part of the archive. Beauchamp’s research was pivotal in convincing the FBI to re-open the case in 2004 — an investigation that resulted in more than 8,000 pages of important material.

“These materials from some of the nation’s foremost Emmett Till researchers will be a great addition to our archives and an outstanding resource for students, researchers and civil rights historians worldwide,” said Katie McCormick, associate dean for Special Collections and Archives.

The collection will be available beginning in 2016 at the Special Collections Research Center at Strozier Library. For updates on the Till collection and further information on FSU’s Special Collections and Archives, visit FSU Special Collections & Archives.

Toni Morrison Papers

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

(Source: Posted on October 17, 2014 by Don Skemer, RBSC Manuscripts Division News, Princeton University Library)

Princeton University is pleased to announce that the Papers of Toni Morrison, celebrated American author and Nobel Laureate, have found their permanent home in the Princeton University Library. President Christopher L. Eisgruber made the announcement on Friday, October 17, in Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium, during the conference Coming Back: Reconnecting Princeton’s Black Alumni. “Toni Morrison’s place among the giants of American literature is firmly entrenched, and I am overjoyed that we are adding her papers to the Princeton University Library’s collections,” said Princeton President Eisgruber. “This extraordinary resource will provide scholars and students with unprecedented insights into Professor Morrison’s remarkable life and her magnificent, influential literary works. We at Princeton are fortunate that Professor Morrison brought her brilliant talents as a writer and teacher to our campus 25 years ago, and we are deeply honored to house her papers and to help preserve her inspiring legacy.”

Morrison’s papers will be among the most important collections in the Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, which has extensive holdings of modern literary and publishing archives. In the next year, priority will be given to the arrangement, description, cataloging, preservation, and selective digitization of the papers, in order to make them available for research consultation.

The Papers of Toni Morrison contain approximately 180 linear feet of research materials that document the author’s life, work, and writing methods. The papers have been gathered from many locations over time, beginning with manuscripts and other original materials that the Library’s Preservation Office recovered and conserved after the tragic fire in 1993 at the author’s home in Rockland County, New York. Most important are manuscripts, drafts, proofs, and related files pertaining to Morrison’s novels on the African American experience: The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1997), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), and Home (2012). The working materials provide additional evidence of the author’s approach to the physical act of writing.

Also included are similar materials for the author’s play Dreaming Emmett, children’s books, short fiction, song lyrics, an opera libretto, lectures, and non-fiction writing, as well as extensive literary and professional correspondence, fan mail, diaries and appointment books, photographs, audiobooks, videotapes, juvenilia, memorabilia, course materials, annotated student papers, academic office files, and press clippings. Complementing the papers are printed editions of Morrison’s published works and translations into more than twenty languages. Additional manuscripts and papers will be added over time, beginning with the manuscript of Morrison’s forthcoming novel.

(To read the complete press release, see The Papers of Toni Morrison come to Princeton).

Rosa Parks Collection

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

(Source: Todd Spangler, USA Today, September 10, 1014)

WASHINGTON — A collection of more than a thousand items that belonged to the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks — including her Presidential Medal of Freedom —  will be housed by the Library of Congress.

Librarian of Congress James Billington announced Tuesday that the collection would reside at the library on a decade-long loan from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which purchased the collection from Parks’ estate for $4.5 million in August.

Buffett is the son of billionaire financier Warren Buffett. The items had remained in warehouses for years since Parks’ 2005 death in her adopted home of Detroit at age 92 as her heirs wrangled over the assets.

Parks is best known for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955, sparking a bus boycott considered central to the civil rights movement and the end of government-sanctioned segregation.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, in 1996.

Parks’ collection is made up of some 1,500 items including personal correspondence and photographs, autobiographical notes, letters from presidents, a Congressional Gold Medal awarded in 1999, clothing, furniture and 200 drawings by schoolchildren and hundreds of greeting cards from individuals thanking her for her inspirational role in the civil rights movement.

 Next spring, items from the collection will be incorporated into “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom,” a year-long exhibit opening today. Library staff will also digitize documents and visual materials and make them available through its website.
(The complete story is available at Library of Congress to house Rosa Parks collection ).

Gwendolyn Brooks Archive Acquired

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

The extensive literary manuscripts and archives of Gwendolyn E. Brooks (1917-2000), Illinois Poet Laureate and the first African American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize, are now part of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The archive, spans more than six decades, and includes some of Brooks’s earliest surviving poetry and prose written when she was a teenager, as well as early scrapbooks and clippings of pieces she published as a young woman in The Chicago Defender. In addition, the archive contains extensive correspondence, manuscripts, and informal jottings, annotations, and observations. The largest portion of Brooks’s archive documents her career after leaving mainstream commercial publishing to produce her works with small presses and black-owned imprints, including her own imprint The David Company.

Brooks preserved drafts and notes for her outgoing letters alongside the letters she received. The list of her regular correspondents includes a significant roster of mid-century African-American writers and poets. A lifelong Chicagoan, her circle also includes many important figures associated with that city.

Regarding the acquisition, Jubilee Professor Cary Nelson said the “opportunity to obtain the large and well-organized archive of the most distinguished African-American poet of the second half of the 20th century—and an Illinois native to boot—represents one of the most compelling opportunities the humanities are likely ever to confront at Illinois.”

“We collect authors’ archives in order to document and preserve the creative process,” said Rare Book & Manuscript Library Director Valerie Hotchkiss. “To have the papers of Gwendolyn Brooks, a compelling voice in American poetry, will help us better understand her poetry, its influences, and the times in which she lived. It will be thrilling for students to see the author’s hand and to get insight into her creativity through her papers.”

The extensive notebooks and various annotations found throughout the archive show the poet as an inveterate scribbler. Her jottings range from details of menus and shopping to observations of daily life and current events and turns of phrase that might be incorporated into poetry at some point. There are travel journals, diet journals, drafts of speeches and lectures, along with verse fragments and drafts of poems and letters. Hotchkiss notes, “It will be a treasure trove for researchers.” The wealth of material that can be tapped for teaching within the University’s curriculum and beyond is also important to the mission of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. It has a history of reaching out to primary and secondary schools, as it often does with its Sandburg archive. Hotchkiss believes “the connections that will be made with young people—from school children to college students—would have pleased the poet most.”

“Not only was Gwendolyn Brooks one of the indisputably great American poets of the 20th century, but she was the second recipient of the lifetime appointment as Poet Laureate of Illinois, following Carl Sandburg who was the first,” said Professor Emeritus of English Laurence Lieberman. “I can’t think of any other poetry acquisition that would honor the University of Illinois Library more.”

University Librarian and Dean of Libraries John Wilkin concluded, “The acquisition of this important archive will be celebrated with poetry readings, special events, and an exhibition in the near future.” The acquisition of the Gwendolyn E. Brooks archives was made possible with the financial support of the Office of the University President, the Office of the Chancellor, the Library Friends, and the Library’s general materials allocation.

Pearl Cleage Papers

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

(Source: Maureen McGavin, Emory News Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, Aug. 28, 2012)

 Pearl Cleage, the nationally recognized playwright, poet, novelist, social activist and Atlanta resident, has placed her papers at Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. The collection is now open to researchers.

“Pearl Cleage exemplifies the creative life,” says Rosemary Magee, vice president and secretary of Emory University. “Her stories, poems and plays all display the imaginative interplay of lives in search of meaning. It is indeed an honor to have her papers at Emory.”

Randall K. Burkett, Emory’s curator of African American collections, says the acquisition of Cleage’s papers “adds luster to our holdings of brilliant African American women writers, artists and activists. These include such talented individuals as Camille Billops, Elaine Brown, Lucille Clifton, Doris Derby, Samella Lewis, Louise Thompson Patterson, Mildred Thompson and Alice Walker. Cleage fits well in this pantheon of leading creative figures of the 20th and 21st centuries.”

Cleage said she decided to place her papers with MARBL at Emory for several reasons, including prior discussions with the late Emory professor Rudolph Byrd, a MARBL supporter, and with Burkett.

“I really appreciated the way [Burkett] approached collecting African American material as an integral part of American culture,”she says, adding that she felt “Emory was a place that would value the work that I’ve done and make the papers available in a way that would make it productive to place them there.”

For complete article, see Pearle Cleage places her Archives at Emory.

William Blair Jr. Papers

Posted on by Bonnie Thornton

Press Release

2 Jun, 2012 00:02 CET

(Media contact: Bridget Lewis, Blewis@uta.edu, University of Texas at Arlington, 817-272-3317)

 ARLINGTON, Texas — The University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections Library has been named the repository of an extensive collection of newspapers, photos and personal memorabilia from William “Bill” Blair Jr., a former Negro League baseball pitcher, a Dallas civic and business leader and founder of the Elite News.

Blair, who is 90, will sign the deed of gift at 10 a.m. Tuesday, June 5, 2012 at The University of Texas at Arlington Central Library, in the Sixth Floor Atrium, 702 Planetarium Place. The event is open to the public.

Blair said he is making his personal holdings available to the public with hope that others may learn from his experiences.

“There are people who are not interested in anything until it happens to them,” Blair said. “But if you read and see photos, you learn.”

Ann Hodges, special collections program coordinator, negotiated acquisition of the William Blair Collection with W. Marvin Dulaney, chair of the UT Arlington Department of History, and Brenda McClurkin, the library’s historical manuscripts archivist. The records hold particular importance for the North Texas region, Hodges said.

“The acquisition of the William Blair Collection greatly enhances Special Collections’ holdings of African-American archival materials,” Hodges said. “This collection will allow us to preserve the story of a living legend in the African-American community for generations to come.”

Dulaney said the acquisition is another signal that the University intends to be a focal point for African-American studies. Dulaney helped plan the new UT Arlington Center for African American Studies, which officially launches this fall.

“We want to be a repository for major African-American items and let people know this is where items of importance should go,” Dulaney said. “The Blair Collection fits into UT Arlington’s mission to promote African-American history, studies and research about issues of significance to all African Americans.”

The University of Texas at Arlington is a comprehensive research institution of nearly 33,500 students in the heart of North Texas. Visit www.uta.edu to learn more.