Adalaine Holton
Stockton University
Adalaine Holton is Associate Professor of Literature at Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey. She is the coordinator of the Literature Program and a member of the Master of Arts in American Studies and the Africana Studies program at Stockton. She teaches courses in 19th - and 20th -century American literature and culture, African American literature, and critical theory. Her work appears in the Journal of African American History, The Arizona Quarterly, and MELUS. Her current book project, tentatively titled Counter Archives: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Black Atlantic examines innovative archival projects constructed by African American intellectuals.
One of the most influential bibliophiles of the African diaspora, Arturo Schomburg compiled a vast collection of books, historical records, and artwork from a range of Afrodiasporic communities, and his collection formed the... [ view full abstract ]
One of the most influential bibliophiles of the African diaspora, Arturo Schomburg compiled a vast collection of books, historical records, and artwork from a range of Afrodiasporic communities, and his collection formed the basis of what is now the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Schomburg’s most famous essay, “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” which appeared in The New Negro (1925), outlines a philosophy of historical recovery as a basis for black inclusion, achievement, and liberation. But, as I will suggest in this paper, Schomburg’s faith in the promises of historical recovery may have been more tenuous and hesitant than this essay in The New Negro would seem to suggest. Taken together, Schomburg’s lesser-known published writings—the essays he wrote on African Diaspora history for the black periodical press as early as 1912, along with many unpublished writings, —reveal skepticism about the possibilities for historical recovery in the face of the erasure of black life. On one hand, these lesser-known essays seek to inform an African American readership about the accomplishments of African-descended people throughout the diaspora, but on the other, they recount the disappointments, dead ends, and uncertainties Schomburg experiences in his own archival encounters and practices. Telling stories of misattributed paintings, obscured lineages, and uninformed librarians, Schomburg contemplates the more material limitations of archival practices that vex the recovery of African diaspora history.
I consider as well Schomburg’s reading of a contemporary newspaper article and the politics of the cropped photo that accompany it as a particularly salient reflection on these archival practices in the very moment of their enacting and consider what they might tell us about the often banal and contingent practices that silence the past.
Ultimately, I ask how we can reconcile Schomburg’s enthusiasm for historical recovery with this archival skepticism. Should we revise Schomburg’s popular image as an unwavering champion for black historical recovery? And, does Schomburg’s archival skepticism suggest that recovery must be accompanied by stories of archival encounters that reveal the role that such contingencies and erasures play in the institutionalization of knowledge?
