Chair Williams connects hearing to Schomburg Center and Arturo Schomburg
Chair Williams explains that the Schomburg Center is named for Arturo Schomburg, a Puerto Rican writer and activist who amassed a collection of 10,000 items. She notes the center now holds over 11 million items preserving Black history and culture.
It is fitting that we are hearing these resolutions today, sitting in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which was named for Arturo Schomburg.
Schomburg was actually born in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican father of German descent and an Afro-Caribbean mother from the Danish West Indies.
He immigrated to New York City when he was just 17.
A writer, historian, curator, and activist, Schomburg amassed an extraordinary collection of 10,000 items that spoke to the intellectual,
artistic, and cultural legacies of Africans and individuals of African descent.
Some of those items are still housed right here today among the over 11 million items that preserve an important part of local, national, and global Black history, arts, and culture.
They helped to make the Schomburg Center the preeminent institution of its kind worldwide.
We will hear more about the resolutions in a minute.