Two panels of distinguished scholars will discuss the rich resources available at the Library of Congress for the study of African-American history and culture in a symposium scheduled for Feb. 23.
Participants include professor and author David Garrow; museum curator John Fleming; Dorothy Porter Wesley, director emeritus of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University; film historian Thomas Cripps; and librarian Jessie Carney Smith.
The symposium marks the publication of the second in the Library's series of resource guides, "The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and & Culture", edited by Debra Newman Ham of the Library's Manuscript Division.
Beginning with bibliographies relating to slavery and concluding with television documentaries of the civil rights era, the resource guide reflects the full span of subjects and formats available in LC's collections.
Speakers at the symposium will illustrate how these comprehensive and wide-ranging materials at the Library -- from presidential and family papers and early silent films to unpublished recordings of jazz giant Duke Ellington to the photo morgue of U.S. News and World Report enable scholars to research the history and culture of the African American population.
The first session of the symposium, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., will focus on the experience of scholars who have embarked on the study of different aspects of African American history using the Library's varied collections.
Dr. Garrow, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his book "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference", drew extensively on the records of the SCLC and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), both of which are in the collections of the Manuscript Division, in the course of researching his book.
He has also published other books on the civil rights movement and the politics of sit-ins and student activism. His latest book, "Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe V. Wade, 1923-1973", is scheduled for publication this year.
A second participant in the first session is Dorothy Porter Wesley, sometimes called "the doyenne of black bibliography," who has long been associated with the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. Dr. Wesley's works include "North American Negro Poets, A Bibliographical Checklist of Their Writings"; "A Working Bibliography on the Negro in the United States"; and, for the Library of Congress, "The Negro in the United States: A Selected Bibliography", published in 1970.
Finally, John Fleming, director of the National Museum of Afro-American History in Wilberforce, Ohio, and coauthor of "The Case for Affirmative Action for Blacks in Higher Education", will contribute his insights on the resources at the Library for research on African American history.
The second session of the symposium will run from 4 to 5:30 p.m. and will concentrate on black culture, music and film. Dr. Cripps, film historian at Morgan State University and author of many works, including "Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942", will discuss research using the Library's film and visual resources.
Jessie Carney Smith, librarian at Fisk University and editor of Notable Black American Women, has published a number of works related to information sources for the study of African American culture: "A Reference Guide to Information Sources"; "Ethnic Genealogy: A Research Guide"; and _Black Academic Libraries and Research Collections: An Historical Survey". Dr. Smith is well qualified to discuss the resources of the Library of Congress for the study of African American culture.
The public is welcome to attend the symposium in the Mumford Room of the Madison Building, First and Independence Ave. S.E., and to view an exhibition displaying a small sample of the Library's important African American collections in the foyer of the building.
