Amistad Research Center

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Amistad Research Center
The reading room at the Amistad Research Center
Map
LocationNew Orleans, Louisiana, United States
TypeResearch library and archive
Established1966
Collection
Items collectedManuscripts, books, and art
Sizeapprox. 15 million
Other information
Websitewww.amistadresearchcenter.org

The Amistad Research Center (ARC) is an independent archives and manuscripts repository in the United States that specializes in the history of

Civil Rights Movement.[3]

The ARC has approximately 15 million holdings, emphasizing documents, and also including books, pamphlets, periodicals, photographs, and

LGBTQ community.[4]

Early history

Fisk University

Clifton H. Johnson
founding director

The ARC traces its history to the events leading to the 1841 U.S. Supreme Court case

common schools, colleges and universities.[5][6]

The AMA became a division within the Board of Home Missions of the

Congregational Churches following a 1927 merger.[7] It continued to work toward causes of civil rights, race relations, and the educational work of the church throughout the mergers of the Congregation, Christian, Evangelical and Reformed churches that occurred in 1931 and in 1956.[8] It eventually fell under the umbrella of the United Church Boards of Homeland Ministries (UCBHM) of the United Church of Christ (UCC).[7] As the AMA division's awareness of the problems of discrimination and segregation of African-Americans became evident, a two-day seminar on "racialism" was held at the Broadway Tabernacle Church in New York City in October 1941.[9] The seminar was attended by AMA officers, presidents of the historically black colleges and universities, representatives of philanthropic organizations, and U.S. government officials.[9] The results of the seminar was the establishment of the Race Relations Department of the UCBHM at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee in 1942.[9] The Amistad Research Center was established within the Race Relations Department to house the historical records of the American Missionary Association in 1966.[10]

African American history. The UCBHM eventually closed the Race Relations Department but chose to keep the ARC and it was incorporated into an independent non-profit archive in 1969.[10]
: 4 

Dillard University

After incorporation in 1969, the first meeting of the ARC's board members was held in the New York City office of the AMA.

board of trustees, about moving the ARC to the campus of Dillard University. In 1970 the ARC moved to Dillard University. The university housed the ARC free of charge in its library with a promise to donate land for the construction of a permanent home on its campus. The funds for a new building at Dillard never crystallized and the Center was forced to seek a new location to house its collections that had grown beyond the space it occupied in Dillard's Library.[10]
: 30–31 

New Orleans Mint

The Amistad Research Center moved to the New Orleans Mint in 1980 after its collection became too large for its space at Dillard University.[12] The United States government had given the Old U.S. Mint building to the State of Louisiana, which in turn had given it to the Louisiana State Museum. Johnson reached agreement with the director of the museum about re-locating the ARC to the Old U.S. Mint building. The terms including renting the floor space to the ARC for $1 per year.[13] The ARC spent $500,000 on renovations to the new space, anticipating that the Old U.S. Mint building could accommodate its collections for the next 15 years. Johnson underestimated the growth of the ARC's collections, and after five years the ARC ran out of space again. Johnson and the ARC's Board of Trustees searched for another location that would accommodate the institution in its continued growth.[10]: 31 

Tulane University

By the mid-1980s, the ARC was in need of adequate space and invitations came from various universities to house the ARC.

Ernest Morial advocated for the ARC to be located at Tulane University. The board voted to relocate to Tulane University, and the ARC has been on its campus in Uptown New Orleans since 1987.[10]: 33–35  In 1996, Donald DeVore became the first African-American to serve as director of the ARC and the third director in its history.[15]

Holdings

Archives and manuscripts collection

Correspondence from the Amistad captives to John Quincy Adams
The Slave Narrative of James Mars

The ARC has approximately 800 manuscript collections that document cultural movements, civil rights, race relations, education, politics, and art.

Alain Locke, Zora Neale Hurston, Homer Plessy, Frederick Douglass and Claude McKay.[4]

Archival and manuscript holdings include the papers and records of:[4]

Library collection

The ARC's library serves as a complement to the manuscripts collection and serves to document the ethnic experience in the United States by housing pamphlets,

periodicals dating from 1826, 1.5 million newspaper articles, and 30,000 pamphlets.[16][17]

In addition to significant holdings in the area of African American literature, Amistad holds works from the personal libraries of authors

American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses by Theodore Dwight Weld.[18]

Art collection

The Laundress, by Henry Ossawa Tanner

The ARC owns a significant collection of

African American art consisting of approximately 400 works. Many of the artworks were a part of the collection formed by the William E. Harmon Foundation and include examples from the growing African American visual arts movement of the mid-twentieth century. The works fall within the traditional fine art categories of portraiture, landscape, and genre.[19] Many of these are available in digital form.[20]

Because of space limitations, the ARC's artworks are often displayed at major museums,

Perez Art Museum Miami
.

Among the prominent works in the collection are the 41 paintings in the

Toussaint L'Ouverture series,[20] completed in 1938 by Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), a celebrated American artist of the 20th century. Toussaint was Lawrence's first series, completed when he was a 21 years old student. The paintings document the historic events of the Haitian Revolution
.

Ellis Wilson's oil painting entitled Funeral Procession is a collection highlight, especially since it was the subject of an episode of a popular television show in the 1980s.[22]

The ARC's art holdings include works from[23]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Amistad Research Center.
  • Opelousas

References

  1. ^ "Amistad Research Center". NewOrleansOnLine.com. City of New Orleans Tourism Bureau. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Clendinen, Dudley (December 26, 1985). "Archives on Black History". New York Times.
  3. ^ "Africana Studies Research Guide". Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. Tulane University. Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Amistad Collections". amistadresearchcenter.org. Amistad Research Center. Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  5. ^ a b "Blacks and the American Missionary Association". www.ucc.org. United Church of Christ. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  6. ^ The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. "American Missionary Association (AMA)". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 February 2017. {{cite web}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  7. ^ a b Williams, Wiley J. "American Missionary Association". www.ncpedia.org. NCpedia. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  8. ^ "Short Course in the History of the United Church of Christ". ucc.org. United Church of Christ. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8173-1657-0
    .
  10. ^ a b c d e f Johnson, Clifton H. The Founding and Development of the Amistad Research Center, (Amistad Research Center: 2005)
  11. ^ a b Staff writers (November 8, 1970). "Dillard's A.R.C. Origins Noted". David Francis, publisher. New Orleans Times-Picayune.
  12. ^ "Amistad Sets Events With Opening at Mint". David Francis, publisher. New Orleans Times-Picayune. October 13, 1980.
  13. ^ Barbier, Sandra (September 13, 1979). "Mint Dedication Date Tentative". David Francis, publisher. New Orleans Times-Picayune.
  14. ^ Kent, Joan (March 18, 1986). "Amistad's Choice of Tulane Keeps History Center in N.O.". David Francis, publisher. New Orleans Times-Picayune.
  15. ^ Faciane, Valerie (October 3, 1996). "New Boss Focuses on the Growth of Amistad Center". David Francis, publisher. New Orleans Times-Picayune.
  16. ^ "Library," Amistad Research Center, accessed October 16, 2014, http://www.amistadresearchcenter.org/index.php/library Archived 2015-02-22 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. ^ "COLLECTIONS | Amistad Research Center | Independent Archive". Retrieved 2023-12-20.
  18. ^ "The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories: The Amistad Research Center". American Folklife Project. Library of Congress. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  19. ^ Amistad Research Center and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Beyond the Blues: Reflections of African America in the Fine Arts Collection of the Amistad Research Center, (New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 2010).
  20. ^ a b "Amistad Research Center". Artstor Digital Library. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  21. ^ "African-American Art". amistadresearch.wordpress.com. Amistad Research Center. 22 August 2014. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  22. ^ October. "Funeral Procession by Ellis Wilson". octobergallery.com. October Gallery. Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  23. ^ Hollis, Sara. "Art, Glorious Art". www.theneworleanstribune.com. The New Orleans Tribune. Retrieved 8 February 2017.

External links

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