Arts & Culture History News
Schomburg marks 100 years of studying and archiving a disaspora
By Kordell Martin
Advocate Kevin Matthews was pondering these times as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture reaches its 100 anniversary as a world-class library:
“We haven’t lost anything,” said Matthews about being among the many Black Institutions that have lost federal grants under President Donald Trump.
Some people say we got a lot of malice, some say it’s a lot of nerve. But I say we won’t quit movin’ until we get what we deserve… played on speakers in the background.
Though the Harlem-based center has faced setbacks due to government action, Matthews said overcoming those challenges is a common feat throughout Black history.
In his role as deputy director of the Schomburg Center, Matthews has explained relics like green books, which guided Black motorists across a segregated America, to visitors for nine years. The center, founded in 1925, is a crown jewel of the New York Public Library.
In a March 2025 executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, President Trump accused Black history museums and groups of twisting the past. Weeks later, the administration eliminated funding for museum grants toward those groups, including the Schomburg Center’s $250,000 grant needed for the creation of new learning programs.
“When someone says, ‘We want to sanitize American history,’ what they’re actually doing is that they’re saying they’re making choices about what we want you to learn and what we don’t want you to learn,” Matthews said.
Despite a judge ruling the cuts illegal in November 2025, the Schomburg Center rejected negotiations for the grant in agreement with the New York Public Library. Matthews said the organization refused to play a game of yo-yo for funding, since it could have been revoked again.
Though the Schomburg Center could survive without the grant, smaller organizations like While We Are Still Here can barely afford to run nonprofits in Harlem while trying to continue preservation.
“The frustration comes in not having enough money to build a proper infrastructure for the organization to thrive to the point where we could have our own space for exhibitions and performances,” said Karen Taylor, founding director of While We Are Still Here.
The group won the $250,000 grant in September 2024 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Months later, the Trump administration plucked that offer after slashing the grant’s funding.
Taylor said the Trump administration cut the organization’s grant that would fund archival projects in a move to target groups they considered woke. The grant’s absence has prevented the nonprofit from developing a process to collect artifacts and create a public area for their display.
Though a judge ruled that the cuts were unconstitutional in May, While We Are Still Here continues to wait for the funding that will aid its mission of archiving in Harlem.
“It’s even more important that people stick to their guns and keep engaging in all kinds of scholarly research about the kinds of contributions that Black people have made to this country and the world.”
To celebrate the protection of this research, the Schomburg Center hosted a festival marking its 100 anniversary. Books by Black authors, comics with Black characters and Harlem-based community groups were headlined at the event.
The festival was Bronx-native Kecia Johnson’s first experience at the center, browsing pop-up shops and rummaging through tables of free books lining W 135th St.
“It’s very important to have these go on because they’re trying to wipe everything away,” Johnson said. “So, it’s good for the kids to know this because a lot of kids don’t even know.”
Johnson said events like these acknowledge fulfillment in Black communities, teaching Black children the value of their identity, as they may not see many people who look like them represented.
“They see more representation, positive representation of themselves, then they know ‘Okay, we can do this,’” Johnson said.
Johnson said she hopes programs like the Schomburg Center’s centennial festival can inspire more events to reach children across New York.