Special Collections: African American Studies Research Guide

American film writer and producer Lew Lipton (1897-1961) worked on this typescript for Harlem Cavalcade from 1935 until his death. The script follows the epic story of African American life from 1626 to the 1930s.

In 1905, African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) responded to an inquiry from Reginald Kauffman (1877-1959), an associate editor of the Saturday Evening Post, who was soliciting Dunbar for poems or stories.

The personal, literary, and professional life of Alice Dunbar Nelson (1875-1935), the noted African American poet, journalist, educator, and activist. She championed women’s suffrage, political activism for African American women, and international peace. The collection includes correspondence, notably in exchange (1895-1904) with her first husband, the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, and a comprehensive body of Dunbar Nelson’s manuscripts of novels, stories, poetry, drama, and essays, some of which are unpublished. The collection also includes Dunbar Nelson’s published stories, articles, reviews, and syndicated columns. Dunbar Nelson maintained a daily diary for most of her adult life and created scrapbooks, which are found in this collection, along with photographs, family papers, newspaper clippings, ephemera, and memorabilia.

This collection comprises letters and manuscritps from African American author, journalist, cartoonist, and educator Charles Johnson (born 1943) sent to his former teacher at Southern Illinois University, the author and critic John Gardner (1933-1982). Johnson's letters contain dense philosophical meditations on literature, the nature of the artist and writer, and the Black experience. Johnson also included manuscripts of articles and novels for Gardner to peruse and critique.

New York publisher Dodd, Mead and Company (established 1839) published a number of African-American anthologies between the 1950s and 1970s. This limited collection comprises publishing files related to Arna Bontemps, Benjamin Brawley, Orde Coombs, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Alan Lomax, and Raoul Abdul.

The prolific career of African-American novelist, poet, publisher, and educator Ishmael Reed (born 1938) is documented in his papers and many supplements that are still being acquired from the author. Reed has published more than 30 books, is active as a publisher and editor through Yardbird publications. He co-founded, with a group of multi-ethnic writers, the Before Columbus Foundation, which had the goal of forming an American literature that went beyond European models.

Brooklyn-based theater collector and book dealer Richard Hoffman built a number of literary collections around American playwrights over a period of many years. This collection of material from the African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry spans the dates 1959-1986 and comprises 17 items, including photographs, playbills, programs, a screenplay for A Raisin in the Sun (1959), and articles related to The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1964).

This small collection comprises two series of ephemeral material related to the career of Langston Hughes (1902-1968), a prominent literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance. The first series contains publicity and programs documenting public appearances across the United States for poetry readings, lectures, and addresses. The second series contains items related to performances of Hughes's works, chiefly his plays, musicals, and operas.