1. For My People: A Musical & Poetic Tribute to Elizabeth Catlett →

    Elizabeth Catlett, one of the most inspiring artists of the 20th century,  defines the hope and beauty of African-American life in America during the Civil Rights era through her art. Join African Voices magazine and many notable scholars as they pay tribute to her life and artistic contributions. 

    Catlett’s commemoration will take place on January 12 in part with Cover to Cover, an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of African Voices. 

  2. Looking for something to do on Black Friday (besides shop and eat leftovers)? Check out one of our totally free exhibitions, like the acclaimed Lunch Hour NYC exhibit highlighting the storied history of the midday meal (pictured). That’s at our landmark 42nd Street building (check out our Library Shop while you’re there for gift ideas). Or, head uptown to our Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center for an amazing (and also acclaimed) exhibit on the fashion of Katharine Hepburn, which includes outfits she wore in some of her most famous productions. Or keep going uptown to our Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for yet another acclaimed exhibit, Visualizing Emancipation, which displays 171 pre- and post- Civil War photographs of both enslaved and free black men, women and children to mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Did we mention these exhibitions are all free and easily accessible by subway? Check them out!

    Looking for something to do on Black Friday (besides shop and eat leftovers)? Check out one of our totally free exhibitions, like the acclaimed Lunch Hour NYC exhibit highlighting the storied history of the midday meal (pictured). That’s at our landmark 42nd Street building (check out our Library Shop while you’re there for gift ideas). Or, head uptown to our Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center for an amazing (and also acclaimed) exhibit on the fashion of Katharine Hepburn, which includes outfits she wore in some of her most famous productions. Or keep going uptown to our Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for yet another acclaimed exhibit, Visualizing Emancipation, which displays 171 pre- and post- Civil War photographs of both enslaved and free black men, women and children to mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Did we mention these exhibitions are all free and easily accessible by subway? Check them out!

  3. The Jerome Robbins Dance Division yields some cool suprises:  The collection contains a number of items relating to current events in the 1950s and ‘60s. In particular, Robbins was keenly interested in the civil rights movement.  One treasure discovered in the audio collection is “Project 65: Mississippi Summer,” a two-hour radio documentary produced in 1965 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, exploring the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. The doc allows activists, locals, blacks, whites, mayors, tenant farmers, and schoolchildren to speak for themselves, creating a multi-faceted portrait of the struggle for African-American civil rights. Fannie Lou Hamer describes being beaten in a Winona, Mississippi jail; a young volunteer from Wisconsin canvases for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; the president of the pro-segregation White Citizens’ Councils defends their purpose; farmer Hartman Turnbow describes his attempt to register to vote and the subsequent firebombing of his home.  Also in the Jerome Robbins Audio Collection is an archival recording of a 1964 gathering of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Greenwood, Mississippi, at which Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier (who are heard on the tape delivering speeches) appeared to present funds raised for SNCC; and radio news reporting about race riots in Detroit, Milwaukee, and other cities in July, 1967. Another gem to emerge from the collection is a complete audio recording of the television program Night Beat, on which John Wingate interviews Jack Kerouac and Earle Hyman. Hyman discusses his struggles and triumphs as an African-American actor and his love of theater. Kerouac, on the occasion of the publication of The Subterraneans, defines Beat vocabulary for his host and discusses the controversy surrounding the “Beat Generation,” his writing process, his cats, his painting, and his study of Buddhism. These extremely rare sound recordings are now available for research use on-site at the Library for the Performing Arts, along with a two-hour lecture-performance by Stephen Sondheim at the 92nd Street Y in 1971, a radio interview with Lee Harvey Oswald, a recording of Arthur Miller’s biblical musical Up From Paradise, archival recordings of traditional Japanese music, and other audio materials reflecting Jerome Robbins’s wide-ranging, ever-searching intellect. - Imogen Smith

    The Jerome Robbins Dance Division yields some cool suprises: 

    The collection contains a number of items relating to current events in the 1950s and ‘60s. In particular, Robbins was keenly interested in the civil rights movement. 

    One treasure discovered in the audio collection is “Project 65: Mississippi Summer,” a two-hour radio documentary produced in 1965 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, exploring the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.

    The doc allows activists, locals, blacks, whites, mayors, tenant farmers, and schoolchildren to speak for themselves, creating a multi-faceted portrait of the struggle for African-American civil rights. Fannie Lou Hamer describes being beaten in a Winona, Mississippi jail; a young volunteer from Wisconsin canvases for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; the president of the pro-segregation White Citizens’ Councils defends their purpose; farmer Hartman Turnbow describes his attempt to register to vote and the subsequent firebombing of his home. 

    Also in the Jerome Robbins Audio Collection is an archival recording of a 1964 gathering of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Greenwood, Mississippi, at which Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier (who are heard on the tape delivering speeches) appeared to present funds raised for SNCC; and radio news reporting about race riots in Detroit, Milwaukee, and other cities in July, 1967.

    Another gem to emerge from the collection is a complete audio recording of the television program Night Beat, on which John Wingate interviews Jack Kerouac and Earle Hyman. Hyman discusses his struggles and triumphs as an African-American actor and his love of theater.

    Kerouac, on the occasion of the publication of The Subterraneans, defines Beat vocabulary for his host and discusses the controversy surrounding the “Beat Generation,” his writing process, his cats, his painting, and his study of Buddhism.

    These extremely rare sound recordings are now available for research use on-site at the Library for the Performing Arts, along with a two-hour lecture-performance by Stephen Sondheim at the 92nd Street Y in 1971, a radio interview with Lee Harvey Oswald, a recording of Arthur Miller’s biblical musical Up From Paradise, archival recordings of traditional Japanese music, and other audio materials reflecting Jerome Robbins’s wide-ranging, ever-searching intellect.

    - Imogen Smith

  4. On June 23, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “I Have a Dream,” to a crowd of 150,000 people—including Rosa Parks—at Cobo Hall in Detroit, in a speech that forecast his most famous speech two months later at the March on Washington. In honor of Dr. King’s birthday, we present an image from The  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture  Photographs and Prints Division, which is featured in their digital exhibition “Africana Age.” 

    On June 23, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “I Have a Dream,” to a crowd of 150,000 people—including Rosa Parks—at Cobo Hall in Detroit, in a speech that forecast his most famous speech two months later at the March on Washington.

    In honor of Dr. King’s birthday, we present an image from The  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture  Photographs and Prints Division, which is featured in their digital exhibition “Africana Age.” 

  5. Daisy Bates was the poster child of black resistance. She was a quarterback, the coach. We were the players.

    — Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine, the group of students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.

    Learn more about Daisy Bates at the Schomburg Center on Saturday, when they host a film screening of Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock at 4pm. The director will be there for a talk-back.