Bivens discusses centennial, exhibitions, and programs
Bivens highlights the Schomburg's centennial exhibition '100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity' and a new exhibition on Black women artists. She also describes the Junior Scholars Program and Scholars in Residence fellowship.
This year, the Schomburg Center celebrated its centennial, and one of the many ways we commemorated that milestone was with an exhibition entitled 100, A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity.
It celebrated a century of committed collecting and dedicated stewardship by generations of Schomburg Center librarians, curators, and educators.
Key elements included a 1937 signed copy of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, as well as sculpture and paintings by Pietro Calvi and Aaron Douglas.
And then just last week, we opened a new exhibition, which you can see, called Entitled, or called Forging Ahead, Recent Acquisitions of Black Women Artists, which features the work of 21 female artists working across various
media.
As part of our commitment to accessibility and engagement with the communities we serve, we host dozens of public programs and education initiatives.
And one I am most proud of is our Junior Scholars Program, a free Saturday academic program that promotes historical literacy through college-style lectures and project-based learning.
It's now in its 25th year, and it has served nearly 2,500 students to date.
The 2025-2026 school year engaged 140 registered...
students in grades 6 through 12, representing all New York City boroughs, South Jersey, Connecticut, and Westchester and Rockland counties.
The Schomburg Center also manages a robust event of calendars or a robust event calendar, regular public programs, book discussions, film screenings, and opportunities for our community to engage our collections.
We also offer competitive fellowships for academics and researchers.
Our Scholars in Residence program, now in its fourth decade and the first in the New York Public Library system,
offers long and short-term fellowships to support scholars and writers working on projects that benefit from access to our collections.
Put it simply, the Schomburg is more than just an archive.
We are a living institution that honors the past while actively engaging communities and scholars who carry that legacy forward.
Thank you for visiting the Schomburg today.
I really hope that you take some time to visit exhibitions, including one that looks at Arturo Schomburg's personal library, what we call the Seed Library.