Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

The nation's largest collection of documents, rare books, recordings and photographs relating to the African American experience resides at this center near W 135th St. Arthur Schomburg, born in Puerto Rico, started gathering works on black history during the early 20th century while becoming active in the movements for civil rights and Puerto Rican independence. His impressive collection was purchased by the Carnegie Foundation and eventually expanded and stored in this branch of the New York Public Library. Lectures and concerts are regularly held in the theater here. Frequent traveling exhibits, such as the recent ‘Courage: The Vision to End Segregation, the Guts to fight for It, ’ are also on view here. Also onsite is the recently acquired Black Gay and Lesbian Archive, a collection of books, letters, photographs and various other artifacts related to black LGBT history.