The Schomburg Center present Curators? Choice: Black Life Matters as part of it’s 90th year anniversary celebration. Inspired by the #BlackLivesMatter social media campaign, this exhibition is presented by five of our own in-house curators who have assembled an eclectic mix of material culture, art and images.

These archives give voice to experiences big and small and lay bare the everyday substance of black people’s lives. These are pieces that celebrate our humanity and history making, and are a fitting tribute to Arturo Schomburg’s legacy of chronicling the past in order to remake the future. This exhibition presents issues of history and culture, art and society, memory and narrative, intimacy and rejection, joy and comfort, race and justice (of life and death) that are just as relevant today as ever before.

Each division of the Schomburg’s special collections and its core library holdings are represented in this exhibition. From private letters between lovers and friends to comedy and spoken word albums, to political documentaries, to children’s literature, to photojournalism and early 20th century figurative art, every means and mode of expression is here.

Curators? Choice: Black Life Matters celebrates us in all our multiplicity and complexity and paves the way for a new movement. Just as the murder of Emmett Till in 1955 spurred a generation to act and create, Curators’ Choice: Black Life Matters serves as a catalyst for those who believe in freedom and cannot rest until the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and so many others help transform the nation yet again.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture