Black History Month Blog

VCU Libraries' Special Collections and Archives is displaying 20 photographs of the African Kingdom of Oyotunji, a village in Sheldon, South Carolina. The images were taken by Dr. Babatunde Lawal of VCU’s School of the Arts during a visit on the occasion of the coronation of a new leader, or Oba.

Oyotunji was founded in 1970 by Oba Oseijeman Adefunmi, formerly Walter Serge King, and embraces the Yoruba way of life. Yoruba communities derive their practices from African religious traditions and trace their roots to Nigeria and the diaspora. The religion can be found in many major cities in the United States, but this small South Carolina village has become a central focus of the movement. Practitioners travel from across the nation to celebrate Yoruba-related observances throughout the year.

To learn more about the Yoruba community, visit http://www.yorubanation.org/.

--Curtis Lyons, Interim Associate University Librarian for Public Services

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Take a few minutes during Black History Month to watch the slide show display in the lobbies of the James Branch Cabell and Tompkins-McGraw libraries. The slides celebrate the achievements of artists, dancers, directors, musicians, performers, scientists, and writers throughout American and world history. Each slide in the series focuses on a specific contribution in the arts or sciences, with a brief description on its importance and influence. Each slide also contains the location of the item within VCU Libraries, and a handout below the display provides a list of all the items featured in the slides. The slides will run throughout Black History Month, and additional slides will be added to the series. If you have a suggestion for including an item from VCU Libraries in these displays, please add a comment to the Black History Month Blog with your suggestion!

--Kevin Farley, Humanities Librarian - Collection Management

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Richmond's Black History Museum and Cultural Center has a new exhibit about baseball's Negro Leagues called, "Barnstormin': the Negro Leagues: 1920-1960." The museum showcases a collection of artifacts and memorabilia such as books, action figures, a Life magazine featuring Jackie Robinson and Wheaties cereal boxes to name just some of the items that will be on display. A Hall of Fame Room will feature the careers of Hank Aaron and others. See this Richmond Times Dispatch article for full details or call the museum at 780-9093.

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Our Black History Month Video Montage, a one-hour montage of clips from 37 videos and DVDs related to African American history housed in the Media and Reserves Services Department of the Cabell Library, is available online and playing throughout Black History Month in Java 901.

From Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech to The Jeffersons to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, this montage represents the wide selection of feature films, documentaries, biographies, classic television shows, musical performances, and historical films available in MRS. A complete list of the films selected for this montage is available.

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Library of Congress

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aohome.html

This online exhibit from the Library of Congress showcases the Library's African American collections, including a wide array of rare books, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films and recordings.

The site tell the story of the African American experience through nine chronological periods: Slavery - The Peculiar Institution, Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period, Abolition, The Civil War, Reconstruction, the Booker T. Washington Era, World War I and the Postwar Society, the Depression, New Deal and World War II, and Civil Rights.

-- Mary Ellen Spencer, Head, Research and Reference.