Curators’ Choice: Black Life Matters at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library

Abstract

668 Exhibit Review Curators’ Choice: Black Life Matters at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library Exhibition on view through August 15, 2015 Review by Debra Jackson The online community is familiar with the maxim “Black Lives Matter.” The social media campaign #BlackLivesMatter was started as an emotional response to the February 2012 shooting death of seventeenyear -old Trayvon Martin. Since then, the catchphrase has resonated with groups around the country, and in recent months, it could be heard at peaceful marches and protests in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City, North Charleston, South Carolina, Baltimore, Maryland, and elsewhere in protest against police violence. Protestors wore “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts and carried signs bearing the phrase. In the United States and abroad, op-ed writers incorporated the phrase into their columns. From television news coverage to print media the expression seems to have taken on a life of its own. Whether our society is witnessing the gestation of a nascent movement that will continue to grow in strength and influence is something that time will determine. Yet, for the curators at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the voices of that movement have conveyed great power, have commanded attention, and are the inspiration for this exhibition. Curators’ Choice: Black Life Matters is an enticing glimpse into rarelyexhibited holdings chosen by the curators from each of the Schomburg Center’s five research divisions: Steven G. Fullwood, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books; Tammi Lawson, Art and Artifacts; Maira Liriano, Research and Reference; Shola Lynch, Moving Image and Recording Sound; Mary Yearwood, Photographs and Prints. The Schomburg’s Exhibit Review 669 ground-level Latimer/Edison Gallery houses “Telling the Stories of the Black Experience to Children” from Research and Reference, and shares viewing space with “Evidence of Things Un*Seen,” the selections from Moving Image and Recording Sound. The Main Exhibition Hall on the Schomburg Center’s upper level accommodates the selections from its three other divisions. There is an abundance of material that greets the visitor entering the Latimer/Edison Gallery, but this reviewer was mesmerized by projected footage from the documentary titled King: A Filmed Record . . . Montgomery to Memphis (1970). Curator Shola Lynch selected this “award-winning but little seen documentary” to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary year of the civil rights marches in Alabama. One of the documentary’s riveting features is the insight it provides into the tactics employed by black southern activists attempting to register to vote. As they positioned themselves in a line to await entry to the building, white policemen appear and they begin forcing them backwards, down the steps, and away from the entrance. The activists steadfastly reformed their line and patiently waited, only to be roughly hustled away from the entrance once again; these are classic Gandhian non-violent tactics. In those few minutes of footage there are several points conveyed to the viewer, not the least of which is the incredible dignity with which the activists conducted themselves during the entire humiliating confrontation; one that was endured because a fundamental principle was at stake. Ultimately, the viewer walks away impressed with the intense discipline needed to successfully carry out such a campaign. The footage both documents the unwavering resolve of a particular group of civil rights activists and underscores the exhibition’s theme (and differentiates it in part from the social media campaign). This exhibition highlights black life in terms of cooperative experiences, inclusive of all regions of the diaspora. The lived experience that integrates African cultural influences , directly or implicitly, is a unifying theme throughout the galleries. This theme is articulated, with particular clarity, in “Digging in the Vault,” curator Tammi Lawson’s presentation from the Art and Artifacts division. In part, Lawson selected objects in consideration of “the recent murders of young black men in this country and what their mothers go through and the universality of pain and suffering that families deal with, whether they are in Soweto, South Africa, or in the United States.” 670 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY Two works from 1998 by Jules Arthur III embody these sentiments: The Problem Within (oil and pastel on wood...