A day-long kick off of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s 100th anniversary

The Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints—the forerunner to today’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—opened on May 8, 1925 as a special collection of the 135th Street Branch Library. Join us on May 8, 2025 as we celebrate the centenary of the Schomburg Center. During this launch, visitors are invited to an open house of our archival divisions, important dialogues contextualizing the center’s development and evolution, and close with a public celebration marking its historic past and vital future. Get there early to enjoy tours of 100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity, an exhibition exploring the library’s history through the prism of place, people, and material culture.

Learn more about the exhibition and the NYPL’s celebration of the Schomburg’s centennial anniversary at schomburg.org/100.