That collection arrived at the 135th Street Public Library 90 years ago. He was a bibliophile who migrated from puerto rico in 1891 found a job on wall street work in the mailroom saves his pennies and worked really hard and bought anywhere are unique but he could find that was by or about black people. He eventually became famous for this collection. People would go to his home in brooklyn to see the library to borrow from the Library People like Langston Hughes and eventually people like and when the librarian at the library and library decided she had a lot of lack patrons coming to the library and a large immigrant community at the time she said ive got to find material for my patrons and ultimately schombergs collection of 5000 items was purchased by Carnegie Corporation and a variety of 90 years ago and made up the core of what now today is a 10 million item collection at the Schomberg Center. Host how did the Schomberg Center end up at 135th . Guest this was the settlement zone
Vintage Tribune: September marks the centennial of “The Negro In Chicago,” a blue-ribbon commission’s report on a race riot that plunged the city into four days of deadly anarchy in 1919.
But he never gave up art, even while working for the post office. His sister Nichelle Nichols, famed as Lt. Uhura on “Star Trek,” called him “one of the finest artists” she ever saw.