The Schomburg Center on 135th Street and Malcolm X Blvd (Lennox Avenue) in Harlem is one of the world’s foremost research facilities devoted to the collection, preservation, and interpretation of materials documenting black life. Founded by Arturo Schomburg in 1926, during the Renaissance, the Center has amassed more than five million items. At any given time, the Center has on exhibit a wealth of these items, with free admission to the public. It could be said that the Schomburg Center in Harlem is “Mecca” for black culture.
With this Center within the geographical reach of our students, it seems the ideal culmination for this unit to make a well organized, educational visit. The Schomburg in Harlem is a resource that, at the very least, our students should experience. If it is not feasible for all of the students who will have studied and embodied the Renaissance through this unit, to make the trip to the Schomburg, (although that would be ideal), then perhaps it could serve as a “plum” for a select number of students who demonstrate exceptional interest or who have put forth extra effort in the activities in this unit. Once the students have been immersed in the literature, art, music and events that embody the soul of the Renaissance, they should have the opportunity to stand on the actual cosmogram, a powerful symbol of black culture, and to read for themselves, the poignant poem by Langston Hughes:
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I’ve known rivers:
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I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
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flow of human blood in human veins.
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My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
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I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
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I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
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I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
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Went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
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Bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
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I’ve known rivers:
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Ancient, dusky rivers.
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My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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(“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” all)
