amistad research center

The gem that is the Amistad Research Center serves a worldwide assemblage of scholars, but also the New Orleans community at-large. Local playwright and director Tommye Myrick, who was then acting director of the Department of African & African-American Studies at Southern University at New Orleans, was outraged by the omission of African-American soldiers from most every aspect of the new D-Day Museum’s grand opening in 2000. After calling for Blacks to boycott the instituti

Amistad’s “From the Stacks” blog series has focused on unique or interesting copies of books housed in the Center’s library collection. However, this edition features a copy of a book found within a small archival collection, the Kenneth Hansen Letters, and related to Amistad’s current exhibition on novelist Chester Himes. Chester Himes’ literary career began with a series of short stories written while incarcerated as a young man in the Ohio State Penitentiary during the ear

Amistad’s new exhibition, To Preserve Their Freedom: Jacob Lawrence's Toussaint L'Ouverture Serigraph Series, seeks to celebrate the centenary of Jacob Lawrence’s birth and his artistic contributions. In 1938, Jacob Lawrence was a twenty-one-year old graduate of the American Artist School in New York. Like many of his contemporaries, Lawrence’s work was funded in part by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal project that employed artists during the Great Depress

Carnets de voyage: Des Afro-Américains à l’étranger (Travel Diaries: African Americans Abroad), illuminates the international travel experiences of African Americans and their interactions with other individuals of the African diaspora. Throughout American history, traveling abroad often represented a bittersweet turn for black Americans. Dealing with diminished rights due to racism and discrimination, many African Americans left the U.S. after slavery for various reasons. So

When the Amistad Research Center was founded in 1966, the Black Arts Movement (BAM) was barely a year old. The Center and BAM share not only close anniversary dates, but the Black Arts Movement is well represented within the Center’s archival, library, and fine arts collections. As part of Amistad’s own 50th anniversary year, we are showcasing the Black Arts Movement in an exhibition currently on display through December 16, 2016. In a 1968 essay, scholar and writer Larry Nea

Scholars and admirers of artists Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence have an opportunity to view works produced by the couple at multiple venues around the country, now and in the coming months. Jacob Lawrence’s Toussaint L’Ouverture series is currently on display in Cincinnati, Ohio, while a single work by Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence is being exhibited in Boston, with future stops in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio. Heroism in Paint: A Master Series by Jacob Lawrence