Schomburg Center Centennial Exhibition: Guided Tour
Thursday 22 January 2026, 11AM-12PM.
Schomburg staff will give a tour of 100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity. This exhibition explores the Schomburg Center’s history through the prism of place, people, and material culture and is part of a year-long campaign that celebrates the Schomburg’s Centennial. Featuring objects from each of Schomburg’s divisions, 100 will surround visitors with the sights, sounds, and objects that comprise Schomburg’s historic past.
100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity is one of the largest in the Center’s history, and features iconic objects from its holdings including, Aaron Douglas’s murals “Aspects of Negro Life” and Pietro Calvi’s sculpture “Ira Aldridge as Othello,” manuscript pages from Maya Angelou and Malcolm X, the visitor book from the 1925 opening (signed by Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and artist Augusta Savage) and collection items that exemplify the Schomburg’s legacy of librarianship from Romare Bearden, James Baldwin, James Van Der Zee and more. The exhibition is curated by Director Joy Bivins and Schomburg staff, with an audio guide narrated by actor, producer, author, and literacy champion LeVar Burton and Schomburg curators.
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 about the Schomburg Centennial celebrations here: https://www.nypl.org/spotlight/schomburg-centennial