(DOWNLOAD) "Arthur Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938): Embracing the Black Motherhood Experience in Love of Black People (Biography)" by Afro-Americans in New York Life and History # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Arthur Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938): Embracing the Black Motherhood Experience in Love of Black People (Biography)
- Author : Afro-Americans in New York Life and History
- Release Date : January 01, 2006
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 279 KB
Description
Arthur A. Schomburg was a distinguished Black bibliophile and self-trained historian who spent many years of his life collecting and preserving rare Africana books, pamphlets, personal journals, and other important artifacts related to people of African descent. Schomburg could be considered a vindicatitionist historian who collected items that were used in vindicating Africa and people of African descent from the white racist pseudo-scientific scholarship of the late nineteenth and early twentieth. Schomburg dedicated his life to convincing people of African descent of their true historical contributions to humanity in world history, and that their humanity and self-worth were not determined by what white people thought of them. In spite of the many years he spent collecting books and artifacts he was not considered by many of his contemporaries like W.E.B DuBois or Alain Locke as a true intellectual. Schomburg's biographer Elinor Des Verney Sinnette and his contemporary Claude McKay both highlight this dilemma, as a source of frustration for Schomburg during his lifetime. For example, an embarrassing and very bitter experience for Schomburg showing this lack of intellectual respect came when he was offered a job by the New York Public Library (NYPL) to become curator for the collection of books and artifacts he had sold earlier to the library for $10,000 in 1926. (2) Despite the fact that Schomburg had spent many years collecting many of theses rare items which he had sold to the NYPL, and would had been more than qualified to be the curator of them, some African-American academicians, particularly W.E.B DuBois, tried to stop his appointment. Looking back, one could ask why anyone would try to stop Schomburg from being the curator of his own collection, which he had sold to the NYPL. The main reason is because Schomburg did not possess a college degree. DuBois and other academicians tried to stop the appointment of Schomburg because they felt he was not qualified to do the job without a college degree. Schomburg may not have acquired a college degree nor had the professional training Du Bois was privileged to have in his lifetime, but did this mean that Schomburg could not be considered a scholar or intellectual? (3)