African American Studies at Beinecke Library

Collections, events, and news from the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of African American Arts and Letters.

Frederick Douglass, Seen Up Close (New York Times)
July 3, 2020
Yale has acquired a renowned private collection relating to the abolitionist and orator, including rarely seen family scrapbooks that offer a window onto his complicated private life.
“What, To The American Slave, Is Your Fourth Of July?” (New Haven Independent)
July 3, 2020
Babz Rawls-Ivy, Erik Clemons, David Blight, and Walter O. Evans kept a Fourth of July tradition going — by reading Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Oration, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July.” Yale’s Beinecke Library traditionally holds a public reading of the letter on Independence Day. Due to Covid-19, this year Beinecke recorded local leaders doing the reading at the Institute Library, then put it on Youtube, in installments.
The Theater Where Ella Fitzgerald Got Her Start (New York Times)
June 25, 2020
Ella Fitzgerald in 1940, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, who documented much of the Harlem Renaissance.Credit...Carl Van Vechten © Van Vechten Trust, courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
Celebrating Juneteenth with the Solomon Sir Jones films
June 19, 2020
IndieWire called Jones’ films “the most extensive film records we have of Southern and urban black life and culture at the time of rapid social and cultural change for African Americans during the 1920s, the very beginning of the Great Migration, which transformed not only black people as a whole, but America itself.”
Black Lives Matter
June 10, 2020

From University Librarian Susan Gibbons, June 9, 2020 From Beinecke Library Director Edwin C. Schroeder, June 10, 2020: Last week’s Beinecke Library e-...
Carl Phillips: Creativity in Isolation and After
May 19, 2020
We asked poet and critic Carl Phillips what he has been thinking about in this time of isolation and quarantine.
Beinecke Digital Library, always open online, continues to grow
May 19, 2020

While physical facilities may have closed on March 16, staff throughout Yale Library have been working remotely to provide services to students, faculty, the...
Cornelius Eady: Creativity in Isolation
May 15, 2020
We asked poet and musician Cornelius Eady what he has been thinking about in this time of isolation; in response, he talked about finding new ways to collaborate with his fellow musicians and about the importance of documenting the present moment through creative practice.
Women’s 20th Century Club Shines A Light Into The Future (New Haven Arts Council)
May 11, 2020
“A Celebration of Women’s Voices," presented in partnership with New Haven Free Public Library and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, was the Greater New Haven African-American Historical Society’s first in person event since the pandemic began.
Emily Bernard: Creativity in Isolation
May 5, 2020

We asked scholar, critic, and prize-winning essayist Emily Bernard what she has been thinking about, working on, and reading in this time of isolation and...