Diasporic Blackness : The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg

Examines the life of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg through the lens of both Blackness and latinidad. A Black Puerto Rican–born scholar, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874–1938) was a well-known collector and archivist whose personal library was the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. He was an autodidact who matched wits with university-educated men and women, as well as a prominent Freemason, a writer, and an institution-builder. While he spent much of his life in New York City, Schomburg was intimately involved in the cause of Cuban and Puerto Rican independence. In the aftermath of the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1898, he would go on to cofound the Negro Society for Historical Research and lead the American Negro Academy, all the while collecting and assembling books, prints, pamphlets, articles, and other ephemera produced by Black men and women from across the Americas and Europe. His curated library collection at the New York Public Library emphasized the presence of African peoples and their descendants throughout the Americas and would serve as an indispensable resource for the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. By offering a sustained look at the life of one of the most important figures of early twentieth-century New York City, this first book-length examination of Schomburg’s life as an Afro-Latino suggests new ways of understanding the intersections of both Blackness and latinidad. Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 9 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction The Silence and the Meaning of It All......Page 14 Anxieties and Misconceptions about Schomburg......Page 20 Afro-Latinx Subjectivity......Page 28 Diaspora......Page 32 Translation......Page 36 Chapter 1 “Patria y Libertad”: Schomburg and Puerto Rico......Page 40 Portraits of a Revolution......Page 41 Puerto Rican Revolutionaries: Betances, Hostos, Rodríguez De Tió......Page 44 Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances (Cabo Rojo, PR, 1827–Neuilly-sur-Seine, Île-de-France, 1898)......Page 45 Eugenio María de Hostos (Mayagüez, PR, 1839–Santo Domingo, DR, 1903)......Page 47 Lola Rodríguez de Tió (San Germán, PR, 1843–Havana, Cuba, 1924)......Page 49 Rafael Serra y Montalvo (Havana, Cuba, 1858–Havana, Cuba, 1909)......Page 51 José Martí (Havana, Cuba, 1853–Dos Ríos, Cuba, 1895)......Page 54 José Julián Acosta (San Juan, PR, 1825–San Juan, PR, 1891)......Page 58 Salvador Brau (Cabo Rojo, PR, 1842–San Juan, PR, 1912)......Page 60 Schomburg and New York’s Antillean Liberation Efforts......Page 63 Puerto Rico: “Foreign in a Domestic Sense”......Page 65 Chapter 2 The Diasporic Race Man as Institution Builder......Page 68 The Race Man......Page 71 Prince Hall Masons......Page 72 The Negro Society for Historical Research......Page 77 The American Negro Academy......Page 79 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League......Page 81 Chapter 3 Afro-Latinx Chronicles: Schomburg’s Writings......Page 84 The Crónica......Page 85 Plácido......Page 86 The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races......Page 87 General Evaristo Estenoz......Page 88 Negro Society for Historical Research......Page 92 The American Negro Academy......Page 94 “The Negro Digs up His Past”......Page 96 “West Indian Composers and Musicians”......Page 98 Masonic Writings......Page 100 Chapter 4 “Witness for the Future”: Schomburg and His Archives......Page 104 Archive Theory......Page 106 Influences......Page 108 The 135th Street Branch Library and the Division of Negro History, Literature, and Prints......Page 109 The Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance......Page 112 The Negro Collection at the Library of Fisk University......Page 114 Schomburg and the Production of Knowledge......Page 116 The Living Archive......Page 117 Chapter 5 “Furtive as He Looks”: The Visual Representation of Schomburg......Page 122 Photographic Portraiture......Page 125 Countervisuality as Mode of Resistance......Page 127 Evasion of the Gaze......Page 129 Defiance and Resistance......Page 136 Questions of Legibility......Page 143 Conclusion The Dynamics of Afro-Latinx Subjectivity......Page 146 Diasporic Blackness......Page 147 Notes......Page 152 Secondary Sources......Page 180 Index......Page 198