The Negro Society for Historical Research (NSHR) was an organization founded by

John Edward Bruce John Edward Bruce, also known as Bruce Grit or J. E. Bruce-Grit (February 22, 1856 – August 7, 1924), was an American journalist, historian, writer, orator, civil rights activist and Pan-African nationalist. He was born a slave in Maryland; ...

and

Arthur Alfonso Schomburg Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (January 24, 1874 – June 10, 1938), was a historian, writer, collector, and activist. Schomburg was a Puerto Rican of African and German descent. He moved to the United States in 1891, where he researched and raised awa ...

in 1911. Bruce and Schomburg originally met because of their

Masonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to Fraternity, fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of Stonemasonry, stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their inte ...

involvement and began attending a Sunday Men's Club that met in Bruce's apartment. The NSHR, based in

Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...

, aimed to create an institute to support Pan-African—African, West Indian and Afro-American—scholarly efforts. Schomburg stated "We need a collection or list of books written by our own men and women.... We need the historian and philosopher to give us, with trenchant pen, the story of our forefathers and let our soul and body, with phosphorescent light, brighten the chasm that separates us." The NSHR's constitution listed its purpose "to instruct the race and to inspire love and veneration for its men and women of mark." Membership in the society was limited to twenty active members and they started with a collection of 150 titles. Members endeavored to gather books, pamphlets and other manuscripts by writers of color worldwide. Meetings took place in members' homes and would often involve prominent black speakers.

Alain LeRoy Locke Alain LeRoy Locke (September 13, 1885 – June 9, 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. Distinguished in 1907 as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, Locke became known as the philosophical architect ...

spoke at their first annual meeting and became a Corresponding Member for the society which partially sponsored his trip to Egypt in 1924. They shared many members and goals with the

American Negro Academy The American Negro Academy (ANA), founded in Washington, DC in 1897, was the first organization in the United States to support African-American academic scholarship. It operated until 1928,Smith and encouraged African Americans to undertake classic ...

and the

Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, and Amy Ashwood Garvey. The Pan-African o ...

. The society's collection became a lending library that operated out of Schomburg's apartment, available to members and "anyone else interested in black history." When the organization disbanded, the collection later became the foundation for NYPL's Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature and Art which became the

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) b ...

in Harlem.

References

{{authority control African-American history of New York (state) African Americans and education African-American literature Clubs and societies in the United States Learned societies of the United States 1911 establishments in New York (state) Pan-Africanism

See also

References