The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture released its list of 100 books by Black authors as part of its centennial celebrations last week.
All available on the New York Public Library’s website as e-books and audiobooks, the list included titles by Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, Claude McKay, Claudia Rankine, Alice Walker and Wole Soyinka. The list was compiled by 70 recommenders who are scholars or specialists in music, media, art and literature. Figures that contributed to the making of the list included Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Imani Perry, James McBride, Isabel Wilkerson, Raven Leilani, and Schomburg Center director Joy L. Bivins.
The titles chosen represent authors across the diaspora and include autobiographies and fictional works. The list covers an expansive time frame, leading up to the present day, and promotes other works by well-known authors.
“Not only were we able to engage brilliant minds about their favorite books, but we also received thoughtful and unexpected choices to encourage our patrons to read, discover, and explore,” said the Schomburg Center’s Associate Chief Librarian of the Research and Reference Division, Maira Liriano, per a press release. “The list is a continuation of our legacy of literacy in encouraging the exploration and access to Black literature, and highlights the many riches in our vast research collections.”
The list was published as part of the Schomburg Center’s celebrations for its 100th anniversary. Opened in 1926, the center was established to document and honor Black culture in America and across the diaspora. Made possible through a $10,000 donation from the Carnegie Corporation, the New York Public Library began the center by acquiring the collection of the center’s namesake, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
Schomburg, a historian and activist, amassed more than 10,000 items. Throughout two decades, he amassed approximately 3,000 manuscripts, 2,000 etchings and 5,000 volumes.
Since then, the Center has more than tripled the size of the collection, housing over 11 million items across its institutions. Now considered as having the largest collection of Black art, literature and history, the Schomburg Center’s possessions include a “lost” chapter of Malcolm X’s autobiography and the personal papers of James Baldwin.
Along with featuring works by figures across the U.S., the Caribbean, South America, Africa, Europe, India, Australia and Canada, the research library supports the work of current scholars.
First established in 1986, the center’s Scholars-in-Residence Program funds the work of 280 fellows and 31 scholars as they research and document Black history and culture.
