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Community » Ethnic & International Studies » Black Heritage Reference Center

Black Heritage Reference Center

The Center (located as a part of Langston Hughes Community and Cultural Center) serves Queens County with a comprehensive reference and circulating collection, totalling over 40,000 volumes of materials "written by, about, for, with and related to Black Culture." Emphasis is given to those geographical areas where Afro-Americans have lived in significant numbers: West Africa, South America, the Caribbean, Canada and the United States.

The collection of print and non-print materials makes it the largest circulating collection on Black Experience in any public library within New York State, informing both children and adults about Black people in the U.S. and around the globe.

Collection Holdings

• Schomburg Clipping File - an extensive historical microfiche collection of periodicals, newspaper clippings, typescripts, broadsides, pamphlets, programs, book reviews, menus and ephemera of all kinds.

   

• Black Newspaper Microfilm Collection - contains 26 titles of America's foremost black publications covering 15 states. Over 1400 reels of prominent newspaper titles are included beginning in 1893, and updated yearly with current issues. The Index to Black Newspapers accompanies the collection.
  

  Titles	Dates
  Amsterdam News, NY, NY	1962-1994
  Atlanta World, (Ga.)	1931- current
  Baltimore Afro American (Md.)	1893 - 1988
  Birmingham World (Al.)	1945 - current
  Call & Post (Cleveland, Oh.)	1934 - current
  Chicago Defender (Illinois)	1977 - current
  City Sun (Brooklyn, New York)	1984 - 1985
  Final Call (Chicago, Ill)	1979 - 1991
  Forward Times (Houston, Tx.)	1960 - 1983
  Gary Crusader (In.)	1964 - current
  Indiana Herald (In.)	1953 - current
  Journal & Guide (Norfolk, Va.)	1916 - current
  Kansas City Call (Mo.)	1954 - current
  Los Angeles Sentinel (Ca)	1969 - current
  Louisville Defender (Ky.)	1945 - current
  Michigan Chronicle (Detroit, Mi.)	1948 - current
  Milwaukee Courier (Wis.)	1964 - current
  Muslim Journal (Chicago, Ill.)	1961 - 1994
  New Crusader (Chicago, Ill.)	1962 - current
  New York Voice (Queens, NY)	1967 - 1984
  Philadelphia Tribune (Pa.)	1912 - current
  Post Tribune (Dallas, Tex.)	1959 - Current
  St. Louis Argus (Mo.)	1954 - 1986

   

• Black Magazine Microfilm Collection - contains 13 prominent magazine titles dating back to 1916, with yearly updates. The Index to Black Periodicals, also known as Index to Periodical Articles By and About Negroes, supplements this collection.
  

  Titles	Dates
  Black Enterprise	1970 +
  Black Scholar	1969 +
  Ebony	1949 +
  Encore	1972 +
  Essence	1970 +
  Freedomways	1961 +
  Jet	1951 +
  Journal of Negro Education	1932 +
  Journal of Negro History	1916 +
  Negro Digest (Black World)	1942 +
  Negro History Bulletin 1	1937 +
  Phylon	1940 +
  Urban League Review	1975 +

   

• Amistad Research Center (ARC) Microfilm Collection - contains the papers of Countee Cullen, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fredi Washington and Mary McCleod Bethune.

  Titles	Dates
  Countee Cullen Papers	1921 - 1969
  Fannie Lou Hamer Papers	1966 - 1978
  Fredi Washington Papers	2 rolls
  Mary McCleod Bethune Papers	1 roll

   

• Howard University Supplement - contains Jesse E. Moorland (card) Catalog of Negro Life and History, v 1-4.

   

• Black Heritage Video Collection - over 500 biographical, historical, geographic, dramatic, literary and instructional VHS videos by and about the Black experience. Special emphasis is given to acquiring original works created by independent video/filmmakers in the Diaspora.

   

• Black Heritage CD-ROM Databases - a dedicated CD-ROM station provides access to databases and indexes on African, African American and Third World history and culture. The collection is conveniently stored at the Circulation Desk. Discs will be charged to customer's QBPL library card for control purposes only. CD-ROM discs are not circulating items. The collection includes:

   

  • African Studies
    
  • Apartheid & The History of the Struggle for Freedom In South Africa Black Studies on Disc
    
  • Latin American Studies
    
  • The Wisdom of African Proverbs
    

   

• Theses and Dissertations Collection - consists of more than 1,000 volumes of master theses and doctoral dissertations concerning Africans and African Americans in the Diaspora. The focus of the collection is on criticisms of works by black writers, with special emphasis on the work of writer and poet-laureate of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes.

   

• Langston Hughes Art Collection - contains a selection of prints, posters, paintings, African textiles, kente cloth and African sculpture. Please note: This is a non-circulating collection.

   

• Adele Cohen Music Collection - contains musical settings of original works by Langston Hughes and set to music.