Feb. 19, 2002
Africana Research Center Welcomes Local Novelist
Breena Clarke
Library Looks to Establish New Center
By Brian
Krause
Gelman Library kicked off Black History Month with a visit from best-selling
African American author and Washington native Breena Clarke.
The event was the first in a campaign to raise funds for a new initiative
to establish an Africana Research Center at Gelman Library. The center
will work to acquire, preserve, and make accessible for research primary
documents about the history and development of African American Washingtonians.
Clarke discussed the historical
significance of this program and signed copies of her new Oprah’s
Book Club novel, “River Cross My Heart,” about an African
American family living in Georgetown in 1925.
“I am very excited about
this initiative and am convinced about the importance of this kind of
collection of material culture,” she says. “We need to…
preserve these things.”
Historical documents were invaluable
to Clarke in helping her recreate 1920s Georgetown. She spent hours
digging through photographs and records in the archives at Mt. Zion
United Methodist Church in Georgetown.
“When I was writing the
novel and needed to know what a flat iron from 1925 looked like, I was
able to look at pictures. What may seem like a flat, dull piece of paper
can be really exciting to writers and novelists,” Clarke says.
The addition of African American
materials is nothing new to Gelman Library, which has a history of collecting
such documents for more than 50 years. With the donation of the W. Lloyd
Wright Collection in 1950, The George Washington University began maintaining
a significant collection of early Washington history, including an original
copy of “Benjamin Banneker’s Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland
Almanac” published in 1795.
Since then, Gelman Library has built upon the foundation of the Wright
Collection, acquiring papers from the Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy, a
key adviser to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and the first
person to represent the District of Columbia in the United States Congress
in 1971.
“One role of the library
is to collect and protect these documents for posterity,” says
University Librarian Jack Siggins. “We have a significant special
collection of materials. We regularly collect materials related to Washington
and the African American community.”
At the beginning of the 2001
academic year, Siggins met with Director of Special Collections Francine
Henderson to discuss establishing an Africana Research Center at Gelman
Library.
“This is part of an effort
to recognize the importance of our Washingtonian African Collection,”
Siggins adds. “It’s also part of an effort to strengthen support
for the African American Studies program.”
Siggins named Henderson, the new Africana curator responsible for raising
resources to fund the acquisition and preparation of materials at Gelman
Library.
Henderson aims to raise $1.5
million over the next three years as she works to provide a stable foundation
for the center. She asks that anyone interested in donating papers,
documents, memorabilia, or money contact her at Gelman Library; adding
that even what seems meaningless to some could be important to historians.
“Our goal is to become
one of a number of institutions in the Washington area making primary
documents and papers available to students, researchers, and scholars,”
says Henderson. “This particular initiative will endow funds in
order that research by and about African Americans in Washington will
be strengthened and continued.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
