African Americans and American Politics: An Exhibition From The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Before Barack Obama, there was Crispus Attucks, Frederick Douglass, the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, Mary McLeod Bethune, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and a host of other heroes and heroines of the African-American struggle for freedom and human dignity, fighting to make America and American Democracy real for all of its citizens. Like Attucks, people of African descent were there at the founding of the nation. And since Attucks, millions have fought, bled and died to help define, defend and protect the ideals of freedom, justice and equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. African Americans and American Politics is a brief survey of that quest over the last 200+ years.

http://exhibitions.nypl.org/exhibits/african-americans-in-politics

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, is generally recognized as one of the leading institutions of its kind in the world. For over 80 years the Center has collected, preserved, and provided access to materials documenting black life, and promoted the study and interpretation of the history and culture of peoples of African descent. The Schomburg Center consists of three connected buildings: The Schomburg Building, the Langston Hughes Building and the Landmark Building.