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.

“What, To The American Slave, Is Your Fourth Of July?” (New Haven Independent)
July 3, 2020
Babz Rawls-Ivy, Erik Clemons, David Blight, and Walter O. Evans kept a Fourth of July tradition going — by reading Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Oration, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July.” Yale’s Beinecke Library traditionally holds a public reading of the letter on Independence Day. Due to Covid-19, this year Beinecke recorded local leaders doing the reading at the Institute Library, then put it on Youtube, in installments.
The Theater Where Ella Fitzgerald Got Her Start (New York Times)
June 25, 2020
Ella Fitzgerald in 1940, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, who documented much of the Harlem Renaissance.Credit...Carl Van Vechten © Van Vechten Trust, courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
Black Lives Matter
June 10, 2020

From University Librarian Susan Gibbons, June 9, 2020 From Beinecke Library Director Edwin C. Schroeder, June 10, 2020: Last week’s Beinecke Library e-...
Beinecke Digital Library, always open online, continues to grow
May 19, 2020

While physical facilities may have closed on March 16, staff throughout Yale Library have been working remotely to provide services to students, faculty, the...
Women’s 20th Century Club Shines A Light Into The Future (New Haven Arts Council)
May 11, 2020
“A Celebration of Women’s Voices," presented in partnership with New Haven Free Public Library and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, was the Greater New Haven African-American Historical Society’s first in person event since the pandemic began.
Creativity in Isolation: Poet Toi Derricotte on Writing and Revising
April 30, 2020
Poet Toi Derrocotte on writing and revising poems in isolation
Preserving Your Personal Treasures
April 24, 2020
Join Christine McCarthy, Director of Preservation & Conservation Services, for an online lecture about how individuals can preserve their personal treasures, familly heirlooms and historical records, and private collections.
Out of the archives, onto Zoom: Some early notes on teaching online with special collections in a time of quarantine
April 7, 2020

With colleagues throughout the Yale University Library , and across the university, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library staff have been working to assist...
Pop-up exhibit celebrates Black History Month (Yale Daily News)
February 27, 2020
Frederick Douglass Railed Against Economic Inequality (Jacobin)
February 20, 2020
No single document, of course, can solve the riddle of Douglass’s complex political ideas. But while doing research at Yale’s Beinecke Library, I came across two articles in the 1856 Frederick Douglass’ Paper that have not, to my knowledge, been reprinted or digitized since. (Most of Douglass’s journalistic writing remains unpublished, though a forthcoming volume in the Frederick Douglass Papers should help address that problem.) Nor have they been excerpted, quoted, or discussed at length in the extensive scholarship on Douglass.