About the Collection


The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection

at Temple University Libraries is one of the nation’s premiere collections on the study and research of people of African descent throughout the world. Our mission is to collect, preserve and disseminate the histories of people of African descent in Africa and its Diaspora. The collection provides materials, public programs and services for a wide spectrum of researchers ranging from high school students to well-established scholars. We serve everyone from advanced scholars on faculty or fellowship at Temple to the general public, researching local history.

The Collection is located in Sullivan Hall on the Main Campus of Temple University. The space was renovated in 2007 to enhance the display, preservation and access of the collection, and to provide for its consistent growth. The collection holds over 500,000 items, in all formats. Materials date from 1581 and most titles are in English. However, some are in languages of regions and nations with sizeable Black populations, including Africa and various parts of the Caribbean and South America.

The collection was donated to Temple University in 1984 by renowned historian, bibliophile and author, Charles L. Blockson. Mr. Blockson chose Temple University because of the university’s diverse student body and its location in the heart of the African American community in North Philadelphia. Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley region were home to the largest free Black population prior to the Civil War. Mr. Blockson’s extensive knowledge of the city, and his own ancestral connections with the Underground Railroad, make the collection particularly rich and unique.

Discover History—What You Will Find at the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection

Rare books, prints, photographs, slave narratives, manuscripts, letters, sheet music, foreign language publications and ephemera comprise the impressive special collections component of the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection. The collection’s rare books section is particularly strong in its first editions, as well as its holdings in African, African American and African Caribbean publications dating back to the sixteenth century, including an extensive African Bibles collection.

Rare works include:
  • Books by Alexandri Sardi (1557);
  • Corippus’s Africani Grammatici (1581);
  • The Life and Times of Ioannis Leonis Africannus (1632);
  • William Wells Brown’s Clotel (1853); and
  • David Walker’s Appeal (1829).
In addition, the collection boasts first editions of works by:
  • Phillis Wheatley,
  • W.E.B. DuBois,
  • Johannes Capitein,
  • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper,
  • Paul Lawrence Dunbar,
  • George Washington Williams,
  • Carter G. Woodson and others.
The primary source materials in the manuscripts component include:
  • sheet music,
  • the principal papers of Samuel Holmes,
  • Dr. R.R. Wright,
  • Natalie Hinderas and
  • Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre,
  • as well as personal papers of William Still.
Additional primary source materials found at the collection are:
  • letters signed by Haitian Revolution leaders Toussaint L'Ouverture and Henri Christophe,
  • The Slave Narratives Collection, which holds writings by Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass
  • Impressive visual holdings—over 500,000 photographs, prints and negatives taken by famed Philadelphia photographer John Mosley, depicting notable African American entertainers, the Negro League baseball players, the Penn Relays, the social and political personalities of Philadelphia and the general life in Pennsylvania.

These materials, and tens of thousands of others, build a historically important record for research and scholarship—for students and scholars at Temple, and nationwide, as well as the general public. Find out more.

Explore History—Visit the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection

The collection is open to the public Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on the first floor of Sullivan Hall, 1310 W. Berks Street, on the Main Campus of Temple University. For group tour reservations call (215) 204-6632. Contact Us

Help Preserve History—Give to the Charles L. Blockson Collection

Keep the legacy alive and ensure that the collection remains accessible to future generations. You can help preserve the collection, and guarantee its continued growth, so that history is accessible now and in perpetuity to the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection. "Find out how".

You can also contribute to the recently established Charles L. Blockson Collection Endowment Fund by specifying that your gift go to this fund.

You will help support crucial efforts to help keep history alive at the Blockson Collection through:
  • Preservation: Preservation needs range from treating negatives to housing materials.
  • Access and Digitization: Ensure that manuscript and book collections are processed and cataloged using contemporary standards, making them easy to find and access. Special collections will be digitized and available for broader use.
  • Acquisitions: Enable purchases of book, manuscript and photograph holdings.
For more information on how to support the collection, contact the Department of Library External Affairs & Advancement at 215-204-9305.

Keep Your History Alive—Building Collections at the Charles L. Blockson Collection

The Blockson Collection is interested in collecting and preserving the history of Philadelphia’s African American community. If your family has a unique story, with materials documenting their legacy, the collection may be interested in incorporating your story into our archives. Contact us today.