From James Weldon Johnson's "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man,"
jacket illustration by Aaron Douglas, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927.
September 21, 2016
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Beinecke celebrates archive of African American arts and letters |
New Haven, Conn.—
African American literary and artistic achievements are showcased in a
new exhibition, “Destined to Be Known: The James Weldon Johnson Memorial
Collection at 75,” at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The exhibition runs Sept. 23–Dec. 10 in the library, 121 Wall St. It is free and open to the public.
The
exhibition marks the anniversary of the James Weldon Johnson (JWJ)
Memorial Collection, founded in 1941 by Carl Van Vechten both as a
memorial to Johnson, an architect of the Harlem Renaissance, and as a
celebration of the broad accomplishments of African American writers and
artists over time. Today, the JWJ Collection is a key archive of African American history and culture.
“The
JWJ collection is one of the premier collections of its kind anywhere
in the world, and one of the most actively consulted of Yale’s extensive
collections,” said Nancy Kuhl, curator of poetry in the Yale Collection of American Literature
(YCAL) and a co-organizer of the exhibition. “Scholars have used it for
more than half a century to document, discover, and disseminate
important aspects of national and global culture and to create new
scholarship to educate present and future generations. We are especially
delighted by how frequently the collection is used for classroom
teaching and learning and for research by Yale faculty and students.”
When
Johnson was killed in a car accident in 1938, just weeks after his 67th
birthday, there was tremendous demand for a memorial to his memory.
Though plans were made for a statue in Manhattan, the memorial
committee, under the leadership of Johnson’s friend Van Vechten, decided
instead to found a collection of African American arts and letters at
Yale in his honor.
Grace
Nail Johnson contributed her husband’s papers, leading the way for
gifts of papers from W. E. B. Du Bois, Walter White and Poppy Cannon
White, Dorothy Peterson, Chester Himes, and Langston Hughes. The
collection holds the papers of Richard Wright and Jean Toomer, as well
as manuscripts or correspondence of such writers as Arna Bontemps,
Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Wallace Thurman.
The
JWJ Collection also contains extensive visual material. Van Vechten
photographed hundreds of his friends including all the persons mentioned
above as well as Alvin Ailey, Marian Anderson, Pearl Bailey, Josephine
Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Eartha Kitt, Arthur Mitchell,
Paul Robeson, Margaret Walker, and Ethel Waters, among many others.
These photographs, together with those collected by Hughes and Wright,
comprise an important visual record of artists, writers, actors,
musicians, and politicians active in the United States from
the 1920s through the 1950s.
Sculpture
by Richmond Barthé, Augusta Savage, and Leslie Bolling; drawings by
Mary Bell; a portrait head of Ethel Waters by Antonio Salemme, as well
as commemorative medals and prints are among the many works of art in
the collection. The Randolph Linsly Simpson Collection, acquired in the
1990s, of photographs of and by African Americans contains nearly
3,000 photographs of African Americans and spans the history of
photography, from daguerreotypes and cabinet cards to photographic
postcards and snapshots.
The
collection, like the Beinecke overall, has a robust ongoing
acquisitions program. Recent additions include: the archives of
educator, suffragette, and anti-lynching activist Ellen Barksdale-Brown;
the literary archive of playwright and director Lloyd Richards; a
collection of approximately 100 letters by James Baldwin; and the
foundation records of the African American poetry institution, Cave
Canem, and the personal literary archives of its two poet-founders, Toi
Derricotte and Cornelius Eady. The collection continues to grow beyond
traditional print material with acquisitions in black tourism, beauty
culture, and film ephemera.
The
exhibition at the Beinecke has two components. One case highlights the
life and work of Johnson himself, focusing on his roles as civil rights
activist, lyricist, man of letters, poet and writer, and diplomat. Also
the author of solemn lyrics and popular love songs, Johnson led a
multi-faceted life and his career was one of constant reinvention. Among
his many accomplishments, he was a field secretary and later executive
secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), the first African American executive of the group.
Johnson opened NAACP offices throughout the United States and became the
nation’s most outspoken critic of the practice of lynching.
A
second case offers selected highlights from other artists, writers, and
cultural leaders in the JWJ Collection, including Hughes, Hurston,
Wright, Hannah Crafts, Margaret Bonds, William Pickens, Roy DeCarava,
Austin Reed, John Charles Brownell, Frederick Douglass, Michael
Montfort, Madam C.J. Walker, and Yusef Komunyakaa. This section of the
exhibition also includes a 1900 manuscript by Johnson of his “National
Hymn (Lift Every Voice and Sing).”
Melissa
Barton, curator of prose and drama in YCAL and a co-organizer of the
exhibition, notes that the show and the JWJ Memorial Collection embody
Johnson’s own oft-quoted words in “The Book of American Negro Poetry”:
“The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and
standard of the literature and art they have produced. The world does
not know that a people is great until that people produces great
literature and art. No people that has produced great literature and art
has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior.”
“’Destined
to Be Known’ provides a window into the JWJ collection,” said Barton,
“with selections we hope serve as invitations to students, scholars, and
the public to explore the collection further online and through
scholarly research in person at the Beinecke. This collection is a
resource for all and we trust it will become even better known and more
consulted in the future as we look forward to its growth and development
over the next 75 years.”
Barton points out that the anniversary and exhibition come at an important time in the nation and on campus.
“Johnson
and his contemporaries understood that Black lives matter and dedicated
their efforts to deepening the recognition of African American arts and
culture among their community, throughout the nation, and around the
world. The JWJ Collection is a living legacy and resource on matters
that remain vital in our time,” she said. “We are particularly delighted
this exhibition comes as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture
opens on the Mall in Washington, D.C., bringing with it a brilliant and
much-needed national focus on ‘a people’s journey and a nation’s story’
that were at the heart of Johnson’s life work.”
“James
Weldon Johnson stands among the nation’s most important civil rights
activists and creative forces,” said Cornell William Brooks ’90 J.D.,
national president and CEO of the NAACP. “The Beinecke Library’s JWJ
Collection is an essential resource to understand the nation, its
challenges, progress, and opportunities. I encourage everyone who can to
visit the Beinecke in person to see ‘Destined to Be Known’ and
encourage all to visit the library’s online resources.”
In
conjunction with the exhibition, there are a number of special events,
all open to the public, sponsored by the Beinecke and other partners,
including:
· Thursday, Sept. 29, 4-6 p.m. — An
opening reception for the exhibition featuring readings and performances
of Johnson’s work by Yale students, faculty, and alumni at the Beinecke
Library.
· Friday, Sept. 30, 7:30 p.m. — Tap
dancer Savion Glover and his quartet in performance, co-sponsored by the
Ellington Jazz Series at the Yale School of Music. Sprague Memorial
Hall, 470 College St. Tickets start at $25; $14 for students.
· Monday, Oct. 10, 4 p.m. — Poetry reading by Elizabeth Alexander, co-sponsored by Mondays at the Beinecke. Beinecke Library.
· Friday, Oct. 28, 7:30 p.m. — The
Langston Hughes Project with Ron McCurdy Quartet and Kenyon Adams,
co-sponsored by the Ellington Jazz Series at the Yale School of Music.
Tickets start at $20; $10 for students. Sprague Memorial Hall.
· Thursday, Nov. 3, 4 p.m. — James
Weldon Johnson Memorial Lecture by Robin D.G. Kelley, University of
California Los Angeles, co-sponsored by the Department of African
American Studies. Beinecke Library.
· Wednesday, Nov. 30, 4 p.m. — Poetry
reading by Fred Moten, co-sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, the
Department of African American Studies, and the School of Art. Beinecke
Library.
· Thursday, Dec. 1, 4:30-6 p.m. — A
reading by and conversation with Fred Moten on the “History of
Blackness,” co-sponsored by the Department of African American Studies,
the Creative Writing Program, and the School of Art. Gordon Parks Room
(Rm. 201), 81 Wall St.
The Beinecke Library’s celebration of the 75th anniversary
of the JWJ Collection will continue through the spring term 2017 with
more events, lectures, and performances, and a major exhibition on the
Harlem Renaissance.
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1) By Shauna L. Howard (@ShaunaLHoward) 2) By Michael Morand (@MimoCT) 3) By Beinecke Library (@BeineckeLibrary) |
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