When Arthur Schomburg was a child his peers frequently teased him about having no history. White classmates told him that black people had never accomplished anything of note and never would. The young Schomburg asked his teacher where he might find books on black history and was told there is no such thing. As an extended rebuttal to this teacher, he dedicated his entire life to collecting everything he possibly could that was written by people of African descent. Today the "Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture" located at 135th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem (New York City) has over 150,000 volumes of black history and nearly five million artifacts, photographs, magazines, and manuscripts from throughout the world and has become the mecca for anyone needing to document or research black history.

Arthur Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938) has been called the "Sherlock Holmes of Negro History" because of his uncanny ability to locate extremely rare or "presumed lost" material written by people of African decent. Russell L. Adams states that " at the Schomburg Center, a reader may see copies of the 1792-93 almanacs of Benjamin Banneker; 'Clotel', the first novel published by an African American; early editions of the poems of Phyllis Wheatley; the addresses and broadsides of free men of color in their conventions of protest; and many other extremely rare black publications, such as sermons on slavery by ex-slaves." John W. Cromwell, while president of the American Negro Academy, wrote Schomburg on June 17, 1928 highly praising and complimenting him: "You possess some magnetic influence drawing you to these treasures that elude the eager quest of others. How can I adequately express to you my indebtedness for your rescue of Banneker from the seclusion in which he has been for 120 years and the many other valuable manuscripts you have located."

Unlike most of his American bibliophile colleagues, Schomburg wanted to collect material from all great men of color worldwide. At his own expense, he often took extended vacations to Europe, Africa, and South America in search of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and etchings. In Seville, Spain, he dug into the original records of the West Indies, which were loosely collected there since Western slavery had originated on the Iberian Peninsula. While in Spain, he also definitely established the fact that two of Spain's noted painters, Juan Pareja and Sebastian Gomez, were men of color. Similarly important discoveries were made in France, Germany, and England. In Africa, he found such things as Zulu nursery rhymes printed in the Bantu language, and books on anthropology, folklore, sociology, and customs of the Congo, Guinea, and Ashanti.

In 1925, Schomburg wrote an essay which was published in "The New Negro" by Alain Locke explaining why he made such tremendous personal sacrifices in time and money: "History must restore what slavery took away…History must become less a matter of argument and more a matter of record. There is the definite desire and determination to have a history: well documented, widely known (at least within race circles), and administered as a stimulating and inspiring tradition for the coming generations."

The "coming generations" to significantly benefit from Schomburg's repository of information include such leaders as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, and Tom Mboya of Kenya which indicates the importance of Schomburg's collection in the African decolonization process that began in the 1950s. In the United States the collection was a prominent anchor for the black intellectual and cultural ferment of the 1960s. John Henrik Clarke, one of our foremost historians, says he provided Malcolm X with research material from the Schomburg collection in his numerous televised debates with Ivy League professors. Dr. Clarke also says he met Schomburg at the age of 18 and credits him with providing the written material that enabled his self-education. More recently, Kareem Abdul Jabbar says it took months of research at the Schomburg Center to permit him to complete his recently published book entitled: "Black Profiles in Courage".

Arthur Alfonso Schomburg was born on January 24, 1874 in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a black mother and white father (who abandoned the household). Schomburg was primarily self-taught but attended public school in Puerto Rico and attended St. Thomas College in the Virgin Islands. He arrived in New York in April 1891 as a black militant fighting for the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico but never stopped collecting books and other materials on African history. In 1911, Schomburg and John Bruce founded the influential "Negro Society for Historical Research" and in 1922 he was elected president of the "American Negro Academy", the first major organization of the black intelligentsia. J.A. Rogers says, "Schomburg was a walking encyclopedia. Ask him almost any fact about the Negro, and he would be almost sure to know something about it offhand." In 1926 he received the "Harmon Award" for his work on Negro education.

Schomburg also wrote extensively for magazines and newspapers. His most popular articles include "The Collected Poems of Phyllis Wheatley"; "The Life of Placido"; "Racial Identity &endash;Help to the Study of Negro History"; "Spanish Painters of the School of Seville"; and "Notes on Panama". He was also one of the writers included in an anthology of Negro literature by V.F. Calverton in 1929.

By 1926 Schomburg had collected over 5000 items including books, documents, and manuscripts which were purchased for $10,000 by the Carnegie Corporation and donated to the public library in Harlem which was renamed the "Department of Negro Literature and History." In 1932, the Carnegie Corporation provided a grant to the New York Public Library to hire Schomburg as curator of the materials he had collected. He remained curator until his death on June 10, 1938.

The collection of Arthur Schomburg is now housed in the "Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture" &endash;which serves as a monument to his influence on the black experience in American and throughout the world. Schomburg's obsession with making black history "less a matter of argument and more a matter of record" and to "restore what slavery took away" makes this self-taught lonely visionary of indomitable spirit one whom the world of black scholarship will forever be immensely indebted.

I'm Dr. Leroy Vaughn and that's my view!