The Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature

The mission and programs of the Givens Foundation are inspired by the Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature at the University of Minnesota Libraries. The Collection consists of over 5,000 items including novels, poetry, plays, short stories, essays, literary criticism, periodicals, and biographies of writers dating from the late-18th century to the present and covering such literary periods as the Harlem Renaissance and the Blacks Arts Movement.

The Givens Foundation recognizes the members of the Givens Collection’s Patron’s Council whose leadership gifts helped to ensure the acquisition of the Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature:

Steven and Sharon Belton
Nathaniel and Victoria Davis
Fred and Earline Estes
Richard and April Estes
Fred and Toni Green
Beckwith and Gwendolyn Horton
Delbert and Marjorie Johnson
William and Faye Johnson
Ezell and Kim Jones
Cornell and Wenda Moore
William and Alice Stubblefield

Collection Highlights Include:

  • Phillis Wheatley: an original first-edition copy of her work Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published in 1773. It is the first book published by an African American.
  • Countee Cullen: a collection of letters from this Harlem Renaissance-era poet to his childhood friend William Fuller Brown from 1918 to the late 1930s. Brown spent much of his career as a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota.
  • June Jordan and E. Ethelbert Miller: approximately 200 personal letters from Jordan to Miller written between 1975 and 1999.
  • Clarence Major: personal papers – including correspondence, publications, and drafts of literary manuscripts – of this poet, novelist, and artist who played a key role in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Collection is available for research by students, faculty, staff, and the general public.

Search the Givens Collection: http://special.lib.umn.edu/rare/givens/search.phtml

Visit the Givens Collection: http://special.lib.umn.edu/rare/givens/

Watch a Video About the Collection: Literature and Life: The Givens Collection (56:39)

 

For More Information Contact:

Cecily Marcus
Curator, Givens Collection of African American Literature
Elmer L. Andersen Library
Suite 213
222-21st Ave. S.
Minneapolis MN 55455
612.624.8812
marc0082@umn.edu