- unitid
-
{"value"=>"532776", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"Sc Photo Institute of the Black World Collection", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"b226120119", "type"=>"local_b"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1969-1982", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1969/1982"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Institute of the Black World photographs"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"4 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"2.3 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}]}
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"Approximately 2,300 items", "unit"=>"items"}, {"name"=>"physfacet", "value"=>"photographs, photomechanical prints, negatives, and slides"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"The Institute of the Black World photographs depict some of the individuals, events, and activities related to the research organization, the Institute of the Black World (IBW), from 1969 to 1982."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Institute of the Black World", "type"=>"corpname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>The following note was written by processing staff in the Schomburg Center's Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Institute of the Black World records (Sc MG 502).</p> <p>The Institute of the Black World (IBW) was a think tank based in Atlanta, Georgia, focusing on Black scholarship and politics that operated from 1969 to 1983. In partnership with a variety of Black intellectuals and activists, IBW sponsored research projects; held conferences, symposia, and events; and produced numerous publications analyzing political, social, and cultural issues pertaining to the Black community in the United States and the wider African diaspora.</p> <p>The Institute grew out of a 1968 proposal by a group of faculty at the Atlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of Atlanta-based historically Black colleges and universities which at the time was comprised of Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark College, Morris Brown College, Atlanta University, and the Interdenominational Theological Center. The faculty, led by historian and Civil Rights activist Vincent Harding and literary scholar Stephen Henderson, proposed the creation of a Black studies department at AUC to be known as the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Advanced Afro-American Studies. After campus protests led to tensions between faculty and AUC administration, the Institute–renamed the Institute of the Black World–instead opened under the auspices of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center, a nonprofit founded by Harding, Coretta Scott King, and other members of King's inner circle to carry on his legacy after his assassination in 1968. IBW operated as part of the King Center until 1970, when growing differences between Institute staff and King Center administration drove IBW to become an independent organization.</p> <p>The Institute was located at 87 Chestnut St. in Atlanta, Georgia. Harding served as IBW's first director, with Henderson and William (also called Bill) Strickland comprising other senior leadership. From the outset, the Institute had a number of notable supporters, including actor Ossie Davis, dancer Katherine Dunham, and singer Bernice Reagon, who all served on IBW's advisory board alongside other academics, artists, and activists. In 1974, Howard Dodson took over as director and led a reorganization of the Institute. He was succeeded in 1979 by longtime IBW staffer Patricia Daly, who oversaw the final years of the Institute's operations.</p> <p>IBW was affiliated with a variety of scholars representing a wide range of intellectual interests and political ideologies. These included Margaret Walker Alexander, Toni Cade Bambara, St. Clair Drake, Harry Haywood, C.L.R. James, Walter Rodney, and Sylvia Wynter, among many others who delivered lectures at IBW, authored articles published by IBW press, or participated in programs put on by the Institute. The Institute also had a group of \"senior research fellows\" who were more deeply involved in its work, including Lerone Bennett, Chester Davis, Robert Hill, Joyce Ladner, and Sterling Stuckey. The research fellows taught seminars, conducted research, and, with IBW office staff, planned the conferences, workshops, and events put on by the Institute.</p> <p>One of IBW's main areas of interest was the rapidly developing field of Black studies, and a number of its projects were aimed at supporting nascent Black studies programs on university and college campuses. In its first year of existence, the Institute surveyed colleges and universities across the country about their Black studies offerings and hosted a workshop for Black studies program directors. IBW continued to conduct research and analysis on this topic until its final years, when it held a series of conferences assessing the state of Black studies in the 1980s.</p> <p>Another focus of the IBW was politics: in 1970 it organized a \"Black Agenda Network\" of associates to assess the problems facing the Black community in the US and propose policies; their platform was submitted to the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. The Institute also worked closely with local Black political leaders and groups such as the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials and Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson.</p> <p>IBW operated a robust publication program. Institute staff put out a twice-monthly syndicated newspaper column commenting on current events that ran from 1971 to 1975, entitled \"Black World View,\" and produced a journal of the same name that ran from 1976 to 1978. A collection of the newspaper columns, entitled <span class=\"title\">Black Analysis for the Seventies</span>, was published in 1973. IBW additionally produced a number of pamphlets featuring both original and reprinted content, including the \"Black Papers\" series published jointly with Third World Press, and a series of audiotapes that drew on previously recorded lectures delivered at the Institute.</p> <p>IBW also authored a monograph published by Harvard Educational Review entitled <span class=\"title\">Education and Black Struggle: Notes from the Colonized World</span> (1974), and a special issue of <span class=\"title\">Black Scholar</span> (1979) assessing the state of Black education twenty-five years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In 1976, IBW began running a bookstore out of its offices, selling its own titles as well as other books in subjects such as education, political science, Third World studies, literature, and children's books.</p> <p>The Institute relied heavily on funding from outside foundations, which by the mid-1970s began to cut back on their support to Black organizations, particularly those deemed politically radical. As funding sources dried up, the Institute was forced to curtail much of its former activity, though it continued to hold events and operate the bookstore until it officially dissolved in 1983.</p> <p>Source: White, Derrick E. <span class=\"title\">The Challenge of Blackness: The Institute of the Black World and Political Activism in the 1970s</span>. University Press of Florida, 2011.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection, consisting of photographs, slides, negatives, and other visual material, depicts individuals, events, and activities related to the research organization, the Institute of the Black World (IBW), from 1969 to 1982. A major portion of the collection depicts the activities during the IBW's Summer Research Symposiums at the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia (early to mid-1970s).</p> <p>The collection includes studio portraits of IBW director and co-founder Vincent Harding; candid shots of IBW staff at the Atlanta headquarters (circa 1970); views of IBW meetings (1969, 1974, and undated); candid shots and views from classes and public lectures (circa 1971-1974 and 1982); and views of parties, receptions and staff gatherings (1970-1971, 1981). Some IBW events may be depicted only on contact sheets, slides, or photographic negatives. Among IBW officials and associates depicted are George L. Beckford, Lerone Bennett, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Lloyd Cogell, Howard Dodson, Jualynne Dodson, Jan Douglass, St. Clair Drake, Phillip Ghee, Robert A. Hill, Rufus Hinton, C.L.R. James, John Lee, Walter Rodney, Robert Abbott Sengstacke, Al Stewart, William Strickland, and Elaine Tomlin.</p> <p>Also included are miscellaneous materials which do not depict events at the Institute, including exhibition, television and dance company publicity photographs, and photographic series related to Africans and persons of African descent (ca. 1969-1981), among other material.</p>"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>Material arranged chronologically within three groupings: Activities and Events; IBW Administrative Photographs; and Non-IBW.</p>"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Purchased from the Institute of the Black World in 1987.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by <span class=\"name\">Michael Mery</span>, circa <span class=\"date\">2020</span>, and <span class=\"name\">Jack Patterson</span> in <span class=\"date\">2025</span>.</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>See the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division for the Institute of the Black World records (Sc MG 502).</p> <p>See the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division for the Institute of the Black World audio and moving image collection (Sc MIRS Institute 1987-55).</p>"}
- date_start
-
1969
- keydate
-
1969
- date_end
-
1982
- date_inclusive_start
-
1969
- date_inclusive_end
-
1982
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"Institute of the Black World photographs, Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library"}