Arturo Alfonso Schomburg

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to an Afro-Caribbean mother from the Danish Virgin Islands and a father of German descent. According to Schomburg's own account, a teacher once told him that Black people had no history, heroes, or accomplishments worth recording — a claim that would define the rest of his life's mission.

Moving to New York City at seventeen, Schomburg became active in Puerto Rican and Cuban independence movements before turning his full attention to documenting the history and culture of the African diaspora. Working for decades as a bank clerk to support himself, he spent virtually all his spare time and income amassing an extraordinary personal collection of books, manuscripts, art, and artefacts documenting Black history and achievement across the world.

By the 1920s, Schomburg's collection numbered in the thousands of items and had become essential to scholars of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1926, the New York Public Library purchased his collection with support from the Carnegie Corporation, forming the foundation of what became the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, today one of the world's leading archives dedicated to the global history of people of African descent.