The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology - Hardcover

The Black New Yorkers is the companion volume to the Schomburg Center exhibit as well as a resource for the PBS history of New York City. With over 200 illustrations and 480 pages, it traces the nearly 400-year-old black presence in New York--from the appearance of the free Afro-Caribbean trader Jan Rodriguez in 1613, through the majesty of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, to the infamous 1998 Million Youth March. As Howard Dodson writes in his introduction, "Here is an unparalleled reference source designed to answer your questions about the history of Black New York," and "a fascinating story of great achievement and struggle in a dynamic global context." Indeed, we learn that West Indians and native-born blacks make Brooklyn, not Harlem, the largest concentration of people of African descent in the U.S. We also learn of Liberty, a mid-19th-century drawing of a black woman that may have been the model for the Statue of Liberty. We discover that the bebop revolution was ushered in by Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk in Harlem--and that salsa and Latin jazz were also born there, thanks to musicians such as Mario Bauza, Tito Puente, and Eddie Palmieri, who blended Afro-Cuban and Afro-American rhythms and musical forms. The collection also contains excellent biographical listings, from Samuel Cornish--founder of the abolitionist newspaper Freedom's Journal in 1827--to the city's first black mayor, David Dinkins. The Black New Yorkers reveals the wealth not only of the Big Apple but also of the Schomburg Center, arguably the most exhaustive resource on the African diaspora. --Eugene Holley Jr.

New York City has been the home of African Americans for four centuries. Blacks were among the founding fathers and mothers of pioneer colonial settlements in the future boroughs, and they have remained integral players in the teeming daily drama of the city. The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology recreates this unique relationship between a people and a city, and through it chronicles the worldwide African American struggle for freedom and human dignity. This richly produced volume offers a monumental assembly of powerful images and engrossing text that narrates the African American odyssey from colonial times to the present day. In these pages, you’ll explore all the driving forces and seminal events in each era, from Colonial New York and the Revolutionary War, through the progress and turmoil of the nineteenth century, to the turbulence and accomplishments of the twentieth century. In highly detailed, year-by-year entries, you’ll gain insights into familiar events and discover lesser-known but important other facts about these topics and more: Politics: from the laws that whittled away black freedoms in colonial times to the civil rights victories of our own day; from the Tenderloin race riot and the Pan-African Congress to the Million Youth March; from Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth to Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Business and Labor: from free fur-traders and enslaved workers who built houses, roads, and bridges; to the rise of small businesses and the real estate boom in Harlem; to the ascent of entrepreneurs and corporate titans such as Ed Lewis, Earl G. Graves, and Kenneth I. Chenault. The Arts: from nineteenth-century Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge and celebrated soprano Sissieretta Jones to Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston of the Harlem Renaissance; as well as Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, Alvin Ailey, Spike Lee, and LL Cool J. Sports: from great jockey Isaac Murphy, cycling champ Marshall "Major" Taylor, and baseball legend John Henry "Pops" Lloyd—said to be the greatest player ever—to tennis star Althea Gibson, Jackie Robinson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Resonant with tales of trial, courage, and triumph, vibrant with portraits of both famous and humble history-makers, The Black New Yorkers is a sweeping, powerful record of the richly diverse heritage of African Americans in the capital of black America. It is a perfect reference for the serious student of history and a browser’s delight for every reader interested in the black experience. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library is one of the world’s fore most research facilities devoted to the collection, preservation, and interpretation of materials documenting black life. From its founding in 1926 during the Harlem Renaissance, the Center has amassed holdings in excess of five million items.