100 YEARS
A LOOK BACK: KAPPA HISTORY
R
The Har l em Rena i s sance Chapt er ' s Ar turo Al fonso Schomburg
By Hwesu Samuel Murray, Esq. Edited by Kevin P. Scott and Aaron Williams.
purpose of this museum is to encourage a fuller understanding of history and the unique role Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. has played in that history. Schomburg died in 1938. In 1940, the New York Public Library renamed its division of Black history, literature, and prints after him. There are many of Brother Schom- burg’s private papers that probably have not been seen by anyone in the fraterni- ty since the late 1930s. Below are some examples.
A historian, scholar, and activist who was a central figure in collecting and preserving the artifacts and the experiences and culture of the Black Diaspora during the Harlem Renaissance, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (Omicron 1922) was born on January 24, 1874, in the Spanish colony of Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico to a Black West Indian mother and a German immigrant father. In 1891, Schomburg migrated to New York, where he became involved with the nationalist intellectuals of the Cuban and Puerto Rican communities and later Black internationalism. After experiencing racial discrimina- tion, he began calling himself "Afro- borinqueño" which means "Afro-Puerto Rican." He became a member of the "Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico" and took an active role advocating Puerto Rico's and Cuba's independence. While Schomburg was in grade school, one of his teachers claimed that Blacks had no history, heroes, or accomplish- ments. Inspired to prove the teacher wrong, Schomburg determined that he would find and document the accom- plishments of Africans on their conti- nent and in the diaspora. Over the years, he collected a vast amount of literature, art, slave narra- tives, and other materials of African history, which were purchased in 1926 by the New York City Public Library. So impressed with Schomburg's collection that the Carnegie Corporation pur- chased it from him for $10,000 to form the cornerstone of the Library's Division of Negro History named in his honor at its 135th Street Branch in Harlem. The proceeds from the sale were used to fund his travel to Spain, France, Ger-
Arturo A. Schomburg (Omicron 1922). Schomburg collection of the New York Public Library.
many, and England, to seek out other pieces of Black history to further add to the collection. In 1929 Schomburg retired from the Bankers Trust Company and took a position at Fisk University as curator of his vast collection of papers, which now bears his name. The collected works consist of more than 5000 volumes and thousands of pamphlets, old manu- scripts, prints, and bound sections of newspaper and magazine clippings, the largest and finest of its kind. He ranks as the foremost historian and collector of books on Blacks. In 2003, the New York Alumni Founda- tion (of New York (NY) Alumni Chapter of ΚΑΨ ) created the Schomburg-Wat- son Memorial Museum. This museum is housed in the historic NY Alumni Kappa House and named in honor of Arthur Schomburg and Robert Watson. The
Above: a letter from James Egert Allen, Provincial Polemarch, Northeastern District, on behalf of the General Committee for the Entertainment of the 24 th Grand Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, and below, on Omicron letterhead from 1935.
All are a testament to the deep roots the Omicron Chapter has planted in Kappa Alpha Psi.
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