NYABJ
2002 Community Leadership Award
HOWARD DODSON
Schomburg Center for
Research in Black Culture

When Howard Dodson’s second book is released in February, it will mark another step in his effort to ensure that the history of black people is preserved.

The book, “Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture,” traces that culture from its genesis in American slavery through emancipation to the turn of the 20th Century.

His first book, "The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology," published in 1999, was an outgrowth of Dodson’s work as chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a post he has held since 1984. During his tenure at the public library on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, Dodson said he has aimed to reshape and promote what is the largest historical archive in the world about people of African descent. Its holdings include everything from the ashes of poet Langston Hughes to musical scores penned by Nat King Cole to the legal papers of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

"The obstacles that have been placed in the path of black folk are what make their story interesting," Dodson said. "The good news is that we’ve weathered virtually every storm that has been sent our way."

On any given day, Dodson pins to the lapel of his tailored suit a cowrie shell, which West Africans had once used as currency but in modern America has become a form of adornment. His fashion is European styling with an African touch. It is his signature. It reminds him of his place as an African born in America.

Since his college days, the matters that captured Dodson’s interests, the topics he studied and the places to which he traveled all seemed to help prepare him for his current work. He received a bachelor’s degree in social studies and English from West Chester State College, a master’s degree in U.S. history and political science from Villanova University. He is completing a doctorate in history through the University of California at Berkeley.

As a Peace Corps volunteer, Dodson was stationed in Ecuador as a national Peace Corps office staff member, which meant he served as deputy director of recruiting and director of minority and specialized recruitment.

Dodson has taught at institutions including California State University at Hayward, Emory and Columbia Universities and lectured at an assortment of other venues on various aspects of African-American history. He has served as consultant to Office of the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Library of Congress and U.S. Department of Education, among others. He was formerly executive director of the Institute of the Black World.

The joy of being at the Schomburg, he said, is that his position requires him to wear many hats. He oversees the center’s $5-million annual budget, acts as a curator and a producer of wide-ranging programs, from staging actress/activist Ruby Dee’s one-woman show to hosting politicized performance poets of Generation X and symposia about and involving the Black Panthers.

A top priority currently is making the Schomburg archives available on the Internet to people from around the globe.

“There is really a much higher appreciation of the African-American experience abroad than it is in the United States in many instances,” Dodson said.

For the past several years, Dodson has sat on the scientific and technical committee for the United Nations Economic and Security Council Slave Route Project. He was chairman of the Federal Steering Committee for the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan. Earlier this year, Dodson was appointed to a presidential commission that is drafting plans for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington.

Apart from his national profile, Dodson has a vaunted place here in the city he calls home.

“He is a strong historian and his skills have been very beneficial to the community at large. … He was instrumental in putting together some major pieces of information and research for the New York State Freedom Trail commission,” said Andrew Jackson, branch manager of the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center in Queens. “His attributes as a historian are invaluable.”

"I’m extremely privileged,” Dodson said, “to have had the opportunities to take on the responsibilities, in many respects, of being the custodian of the memory and the legacy of an extraordinary people."

– Warren Woodberry Jr.