Schomburg, Futurity, and the Precarious Archives of Self

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is the premier center of African American and Afro-diasporic studies. Yet, as the literary scholar Vanessa Valdés argues, we know little of the center’s namesake and his drive to collect and establish a renowned archive that emphasized the history, experience, and culture of African descended peoples and communities. Employing Valdés’s Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, this essay explores the politics of Afro-diasporic collection, archive, visibility, and futurity.