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) between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
The resources of the Center are broken up into five divisions, the Art and Artifacts Division, the Jean Blackwell Hutson General Research and Reference Division, the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, and the Photographs and Prints Division.
In addition to research services, the center hosts readings, discussions, art exhibitions, and theatrical events. It is open to the general public.
In 1901, Andrew Carnegie tentatively agreed to donate $5,200,000 (equivalent to $149,697,600 in 2016) to construct 65 branch libraries in New York City, with the requirement that the City provide the land and maintain the buildings once construction was complete. Later in 1901 Carnegie formally signed a contract with the City of New York to transfer his donation to the city to then allow it to justify purchasing the land to house the libraries. McKim, Mead & White were chosen as the architects and Charles Follen McKim designed the three-story library building at 103 West 135th Street in the Italian Renaissance Palazzo mode. At its opening on July 14, 1905, the library had 10,000 books and the librarian in charge was Gertrude Cohen.
In 1920, Ernestine Rose, a white woman born in Bridgehampton in 1880, became the branch librarian. She quickly integrated the all-white library staff. Catherine Allen Latimer, the first African-American librarian hired by the NYPL, was sent to work with Rose as was Roberta Bosely months later. Some time later Sadie Peterson Delaney became