Uncovering Our History Through The Relics Left Behind
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Photos
Anyone who knows anything about HBCUs knows Howard University in Washington. It’s not the oldest of the historically black colleges and universities but it is among the most august. It has a large web of…
Posted in Books, collectibles, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, history, and Photos
I met the historian and bibliophile Charles Blockson some years after I arrived in Philadelphia. I had gone to his enclave at Temple University, a small space that housed the thousands of books, manuscripts and artifacts…
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Photos, and Postcards
As you know, I love old photos. I like to imagine the stories behind each one of them. Who were these people and what were their lives like? I don’t go out of my way…
Posted in collectibles, Photos, and Sports
A couple years ago, I went to a black memorabilia show in a hotel in North Jersey. I wanted to see what was selling and for what price. That was before I discovered auctions. The…
Posted in Photos
No one quite captured the culture, the love and the beauty of the people of Harlem like photographer James Van Der Zee. We all can conjure in our minds his iconic 1932 photo of a…
Posted in Photos
I’ve learned that you don’t have to make important finds at auctions. Sometimes, museums themselves can discover treasures among their troves of donated and purchased items. That was the case recently at the Philadelphia History…
Posted in Photos
The group of photos were on a back table at the auction house against a wall, almost hidden among much taller items. They were black and whites of African American soldiers. Several showed 10 soldiers…
Posted in Photos
Last month, Swann Auction Galleries auctioned off photographs of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. The three had been photographed by a man named Cornelius M. Battey. I went to the Swann auction in…
