Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is using its centennial year to look forward. From November 16 through 18, the institution will convene scholars, archivists and public audiences for The Next Century of Black Studies, a free three-day conference built around a question larger than any anniversary: what should Black Studies make possible now?
The gathering arrives as the Schomburg marks a century of collecting, preserving and interpreting Black life across the global African diaspora. Its program does not treat that history as a finished monument. Instead, the agenda moves from Arturo Schomburg’s legacy into Black Marxism, global Black Studies and emerging fields, connecting the work of an archive to the scholarship and public conversations still taking shape.
A centennial pointed toward the future
The New York Public Library acquired Arturo Alfonso Schomburg’s collection in 1926, creating the foundation for what became one of the world’s most significant repositories of Black history and culture. A century later, the center’s holdings reach far beyond books. They include manuscripts, recorded sound, moving images, art, artifacts and photographs that allow researchers and communities to trace ideas, movements and creative lives across generations.
That scale matters because the conference is not simply asking how Black history should be remembered. Its framing asks how collections can remain active: how older records meet new questions, how global perspectives reshape the field and how public institutions can make scholarship useful beyond the academy.
The distinction is important in Harlem, where the Schomburg functions as both a research center and a neighborhood cultural institution. Its location at Malcolm X Boulevard and West 135th Street places the conference inside the community history that shaped the collection, not at a distance from it.
Three days, one expanding field
Day One runs Monday, November 16, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The published program begins with the Schomburg’s legacy and moves into the future of Black Studies, establishing the institution itself as part of the subject. That opening gives the conference a productive tension: a century-old archive can preserve what came before while also changing the questions researchers are able to ask next.
Day Two follows Tuesday, November 17, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The schedule continues the conference’s examination of intellectual traditions and the institutions that support them. NYPL notes that program end times are approximate, so visitors should allow flexibility in their plans.
Day Three concludes Wednesday, November 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Its themes include Black Marxism, emerging work within global Black Studies and perspectives connected to Ghana and South Africa. The international emphasis reflects Arturo Schomburg’s own wide collecting vision and the center’s continuing commitment to histories that cross national borders.
Why this conference matters now
Black Studies has always been more than a catalog of people and dates. At its strongest, the field changes what counts as evidence, whose experience shapes a question and which institutions have the responsibility to preserve that work. The Schomburg’s conference makes those choices visible by placing archival practice, political thought and global scholarship in the same room.
It also gives the public a way into work that can otherwise feel sealed inside universities or special collections. The conference is offered both in person and online, widening access to a program rooted in Harlem but relevant well beyond New York. Registration is free through NYPL, and each day has its own program page.
The approach echoes other recent JSM Culture stories about institutions making archives public. Michelle Handelman’s digital capsule collection turned more than 400 items into an active queer cultural record, while Black.Indie.Ignite used Weeksville to connect emerging creators with professional development and community history. The Schomburg conference works at a different scale, but the underlying question is related: how does cultural memory become infrastructure for people working now?
What to know before you go
- Dates: Monday, November 16 through Wednesday, November 18, 2026
- Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037
- Monday: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
- Tuesday: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
- Wednesday: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Admission: Free registration through NYPL
- Access: In-person and virtual participation are available
Review the conference announcement and the NYPL pages for Day One, Day Two and Day Three before attending. Program end times may shift.
Related: Michelle Handelman’s 400-Item Digital Archive Makes Queer Cultural Memory Public and Black.Indie.Ignite Builds a 100-Creator Pipeline at Weeksville.
Photo: Beyond My Ken via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Image resized from the original.