Laura Helton

“Remaking the World of Arturo Schomburg” is a collaborative digital edition of the papers of Arturo Schomburg (1874-1938), the Afro-Puerto Rican bibliophile who built two of the world’s most important collections on African diasporic history. Fisk University and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—the two institutions where Schomburg was a curator—have partnered with a team of scholars, led by Laura Helton and Melanie Chambliss, to digitally unite Schomburg’s correspondence and create a portal for research and teaching. Currently in its planning phase, this project will launch in 2025—the Schomburg Center’s centennial—with a mini-edition, “Black Bibliophiles in Nashville and Harlem,” illuminating the intellectuals and librarians who founded the field of Black history.