James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection

The James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection (JWJ) documents and celebrates the cultural and artistic achievements and the intellectual and political activities of African Americans.

  • Campus events honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

    January 10, 2023

    The Yale and New Haven communities will commemorate the life and legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. during a series of campus events, including a keynote address by his eldest son, Martin Luther King III. The campus celebrations, which also will include library exhibits highlighting King’s contributions, a poetry slam, an exploration of King’s influence on environmental justice, and a love march, are part of the university’s annual campus commemoration of the famed civil rights activist and preacher.

  • New Haven Black history ready to be explored at Yale's Beinecke library (New Haven Register)

    November 14, 2022

    If there's one thing New Haven has plenty of, it's history — and for as long as there have been African Americans in New Haven, that history has been recorded along with the stories of all the ethnicities that call or have called New Haven home. Much of it has been recorded, catalogued and preserved by historical societies and libraries, including the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University which will provide an opportunity Sunday in conjunction with The Greater New Haven African American Historical Society for people to come in an explore.

  • Celebrating Black New Haven & Dixwell Congregational UCC History

    October 17, 2022

    The Beinecke Library recognizes Black New Haven and one of the city’s most revered African American communities, the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC). The Dixwell Church was founded at 105 Temple Street in 1820. It is the oldest African American Congregational UCC church in the world and among the oldest African American churches of any denomination in New Haven. It has a long social justice tradition with early congregants aiding escaped slaves seeking freedom through the underground railroad. While others supported the Amistad captives jailed in New Haven during their groundbreaking trial. Delayed by the global pandemic, the Dixwell Church celebrates its Bicentennial Plus Two anniversary this year. Its thriving congregation continues to be a center of the historic Dixwell neighborhood to this day. The Beinecke Library had the opportunity to share historically relevant items from the collection through a public viewing on September 17, 2022.

  • Digital project supports ‘bibliographic turn’ in Black literary studies

    August 11, 2022

    Digital project supports ‘bibliographic turn’ in Black literary studies By Allison Bensinger August 11, 2022 Share this with Facebook Share this with Twitter Share this with LinkedIn Share this with Email Print this A selection of books by Black authors (Photo by Tubyez Cropper) Yale’s Jacqueline Goldsby and Meredith McGill of Rutgers University recently received a $1.7 million grant from The Mellon Foundation to support the development of The Black Bibliography Project (BBP), an initiative that aims to revive and transform descriptive bibliography for African American and Black Diaspora literary studies.

  • Student curator Gabrielle Colangelo ’22 brings obscured lesbian histories to light

    June 6, 2022

    For her exhibition, “We Are Everywhere: Lesbians in the Archive,” now on view in Sterling Memorial Library, student curator Gabrielle “Gabby” Colangelo ’22, began by asking questions. “Why are there so few lesbians represented in Yale’s archives? And who is Silvia Dobson, this unknown woman who appears so prominently in my search results?”