Schomburg Center’s Home Is Harlem, Say Leaders

The rumors started circulating soon after Howard Dodson announced this spring that he would step down as director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He had been forced out, some said. The 10 million holdings of the center, a research unit of the New York Public Library, would be moved to the library’s main home at Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, some said, or they would be parceled out to branches. There was even a rumor that the Schomburg, known as the premier institution of its kind, would move to New Jersey.

The speculation had become so intense that on July 15 Mr. Dodson posted a memo on the Schomburg’s Web site, nypl.org/locations/schomburg, to set the record straight. And on Thursday night public library officials held what they called “a community conversation” at the Schomburg, at 515 Lenox Avenue, at 135th Street, in Harlem, to address the rumors, provide an update on the search for Mr. Dodson’s successor and to hear what people envision for the center, with its trove of manuscripts, recordings, books and other holdings that aim to capture the global black experience.

Those who turned out wanted reassurances that the Schomburg would stay put, with a dedicated leader.

“We’ve seen things disappear,” one speaker, Camille Yarbrough, said, mentioning the closing of beloved spots like Liberation Bookstore, as the neighborhood has become increasingly gentrified and gained white residents in the last decade. “And that’s why we’re nervous,” she said. “We’re going to fight to see the right person is chosen.”

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Credit...Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times

Some went so far as to suggest who that should be: Molefi Kete Asante, a professor of African American Studies at Temple University.

“We’re going to fight hard to get Molefi Asante,” said City Councilman Charles Barron, to vigorous applause. Dr. Asante’s supporters say he is one of the most widely published scholars in African studies and is known for his Afrocentric perspective on history. He could not be reached for comment; according to his voice mail he is traveling.

The Schomburg is as much a monument to an idea as it is a library, tourist draw and multifaceted cultural center.

Mr. Dodson, who has been director of the center since 1984, tried to reassure the audience, which packed the Langston Hughes Auditorium for two hours of a lively conversation that was part spin control, part celebration. “First, the Schomburg Center is not going to close,” he said. “Nor is it going to move from Harlem. And the collections of the Center are not moving anywhere, either. And no, I am not being forced to retire, nor am I being forced to do anything.”

Among those joining him onstage were Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library; the actress Ruby Dee; and Ilyasah Shabazz, a daughter of Malcolm X and a descendant of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, the Puerto Rican-born black bibliophile whose collection was added to the 135th Street Branch’s Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints in 1926.

Ms. Dee was among many people who recalled how inspiring and helpful they have found the Schomburg over the years. “There is something of my blood in this place,” she said.

The meeting on Thursday was part of a new management approach the library is taking to solicit the views and opinions of supporters and patrons, Mr. LeClerc said in an earlier interview. “We appreciate how significant the Schomburg is to the Pan-African community and beyond,” he said.

Mr. LeClerc, who is himself retiring next year, said the main challenges facing the Schomburg and all research libraries were getting material online and getting people through the doors to obtain access to documents that are critical and one of a kind. “We don’t want our research libraries to become museums,” he said.

On Thursday night he told the audience: “This is where our heart is, this is where our money is, this is where our mind is. And I say that from a corporate point of view. So I hope everybody relaxes, and that what Howard said, what I’ve said, reassures you about that commitment.”

The library has formed an eight-person search committee to find Mr. Dodson’s successor. The chairmen are Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard and a library trustee, and Gordon J. Davis, another trustee and a partner in the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf. Interviews will begin soon and end in late fall, Raymond J. McGuire, a library trustee and search committee member, said on Thursday night.

Mr. McGuire, Citi’s head of global banking, said the committee had had many conversations and was getting input from community leaders, scholars, activists and politicians. He did not comment on Dr. Asante.

“Pure and simple, we’re looking for excellence,” Mr. McGuire said.
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