The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture held an all-day party on May 8 to kick off its 100th birthday celebration. The Harlem-based institution is commemorating a century of providing the public with access to evidence-based research about the African diaspora.
The day also marked the start of a year-long celebration of the Schomburg that will feature exhibitions, book giveaways, readings, and performances.
Crowds formed a line that wrapped down the street and around the block in anticipation of the 11 a.m. opening of the library’s doors. From midday through 6 p.m., visitors had the opportunity to view the exhibition “100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity,” see some of the library’s original artworks, and attend talks that helped explain the Schomburg Center’s origins.
When the Schomburg Center was established on May 8, 1925, it was installed as the New York Public Library’s Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints. Items in its initial collection were based on the more than 4,000 books and objects that had been part of the personal collection of bibliophile Arturo Schomburg.
Photographer Chester Higgins Jr. discusses his iconic 1991 photograph “A Dance of Rivers” with artist-educator Nashormeh Lindo. (Karen Juanita Carrillo photo) 
Entrance to Schomburg Center exhibition, “100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity.” (Karen Juanita Carrillo photo) 
Crowds form line that wrapped down street and around block in anticipation of 11 a.m. opening of the Schomburg Center library’s doors. (Isseu Diouf Campbell photo)
One of the events from this past May 8 day’s events was a fireside chat between artist-educator Nashormeh Lindo and photographer Chester Higgins Jr. The two talked about Higgins’ iconic “A Dance of Rivers” photograph from 1991.
“A Dance of Rivers” features the poet Amiri Baraka dancing with Dr. Maya Angelou on top of the art installation “Rivers,” a cosmogram created by the artist Houston Conwill. The “Rivers” installation serves as a memorial to the poet Langston Hughes, whose ashes are entombed beneath the cosmogram.
Lindo is a former Schomburg Center staff member. Back when she was hired to work at the Schomburg, one of her first assignments was to purchase 12 small boxes. The boxes were so pretty, she later admitted, that she also used her own money and bought one for herself. Lindo later found out that the boxes were meant to house the ashes of Hughes. “What I remember,” she told the crowd in attendance, “is that there’s a tributary from the Harlem River that runs along 135th Street. They were going to put some of the ashes in the floor that’s in the lobby there and [have] Houston [Conwill] put his cosmogram on it. The other boxes were sent to 11 locations around the world: four [of the rivers] were from the poem ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’…”
One of the boxes with Hughes’ ashes was officially sealed and buried in a vault under the Schomburg Center’s cosmogram.
In 1991, Schomburg employees gathered with cultural icons at the center to celebrate Hughes as his February 1 birthday neared. Hughes’ good friend, jazz pianist Randy Weston, started playing the song Hughes had always said he wanted performed in his memory: “Do Nothing ’Til You Hear From Me.”
As the music started, Baraka crossed the floor and asked Angelou to dance.
New York Times staff photographer Chester Higgins had asked his newspaper’s night editor to leave space for him to place a photo or two in the paper about the Schomburg Center event. “I wanted to make sure that that message and that reality was reflected in the New York Times,” he commented. The joy of that evening’s celebration and essence were caught in this one photo he took that night.
Higgins had captioned the photo by describing Baraka and Angelou as dancing on Hughes’ ashes as a sign of African respect. But he reports that both artists later told him that was not the reason they were dancing. “They talked to each other, and they said, ‘Well, is that what you were doing?’ And he said, ‘No, I was doing the jitterbug!’”
Voiceover artist James Briggs Murray, founder of the Schomburg Center’s Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, added his own memory of that evening. He recounted that he had been standing next to Baraka as the music began to play. “I feel like dancing,” Baraka told Briggs Murray, but he was hesitant to do so because he thought it might be disrespectful to Hughes. Briggs Murray reassured him, saying, “No, you know Langston — Langston would have loved it. Wherever he is, he would love that moment.”
Emboldened, Baraka said, “‘Okay, I’m going to do that.’ And that’s when he went over to Maya and brought Maya to the middle of the floor.”
That was how Higgins was able to capture his photo of two cultural and literary icons connecting while in the presence of a third, at the Schomburg Center.
For more info, visit nypl.org/spotlight/schomburg-centennial.