The Pan-African library of CANVAS Institute is the only collection of books on Staten Island devoted to the experiences of people of African descent.  Some books are seminal works of scholarship and literature that have changed American history; others are popular best-sellers and celebrity biographies that illuminate the impact of black life throughout the world.  The collection began with a donation of over 800 books donated by the Givens family.  It reflects a wide-ranging, erudite, and cosmopolitan interest in the ever evolving experience of black life.

The books in the Pan-African Library are shelved and catalogued according to the Dewey Decimal Classification System.  Within this catalogue and on the shelves, they are grouped under these categories:  Fiction and Literature; Sports; Music and Entertainment; Slavery and Abolition; African History and Culture; United States History; 20th Century Civil Rights; Race and Society.  The names of these categories are found on the shelves as well, starting with Fiction and Literature on the upper left hand shelf and ending with Race and Society on the lower right hand.

 Although the Pan-African library includes first editions and reprints of books published before 1900, a striking number of books were published in the late 1960s, reflecting the surge of publisher and readers’ interest in African-American issues during the civil rights movement.   Accordingly, the library is exceptionally strong in 20th Century Civil Rights literature, represented by  numerous collections of Martin Luther King’s speeches and writings as well as Taylor Branch’s multivolume history of the King years.  The books in this section also introduce readers to books by radical figures from this era such as Stokely Carmichael, Dick Gregory, Amiri Baraka, Eldridge Cleaver, as well as by Shirley Chisolm, the Brooklyn Congresswoman who became the first black woman to run for President.  The Pan-African library is the record of civil rights movement whose intensity and focus was matched by its literature.

A fitting companion to the books in this section are the many works of sociology, urban studies, and critical race studies categorized under Race and Society.  Many of the books in this section were written with the intent of understanding, analyzing, and tracing back the racial strife that gripped the country throughout the 20th century, starting with W. E. B. DuBois’s classic Souls of Black Folk.   Other books are dated today by their reliance on white perspectives, like Gunnar Myrdahl’s An American Dilemma, and their focus on “the inner city,” such as Kenneth Clark’s Dark Ghetto.  The collection also shows the impact that African-American academics and black feminists made on the study of the “race problem” with many books by bell hooks and Angela Davis.   

The Fiction and Literature section includes titles from the flowering of black women’s publishing in the 1970s and 80s.   The Pan-African Library has a remarkable collection of fiction by Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker as well as classics by James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston.

The rich variety of biographies and autobiographies grouped under Sports and Music and Entertainment reflects the importance of these popular books to social change.  For generations of American readers, the life story of sports heroes such as Jesse Owens,  Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali and the biographies of entertainment giants like Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier have been essential civil rights literature. The wealth of titles in this section reflect the incredible impact of black Americans in these industries.    

An earlier generation of autobiographies by nineteenth century antislavery leaders like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth are found in Slavery and Abolition.  Also included in this section is an impressive variety of books written during this time period about the slavery problem that split the United States.  The Pan-African library has sufficient number of books devoted to this crucial period in American history to merit a separate section of its own.  

The largest collection of books in the Pan-African library are categorized under History, a reflection of the fascinating scholarship in black life since the Emancipation and the broader history of African-Americans.  Readers will discover many classic works on the crucial period of Reconstruction in the late 19th century, the “Great Migration” of the early 20th century, as well as African American military history throughout the 20th century.   Included in this section are anthologies and catalogues of notable figures in black history as well as biographies and autobiographies by historically significant figures such as Barack Obama and Thurgood Marshall.  

An important contribution to non-Western histories and literature of black people is made by the books gathered under African History and Culture.  The Pan-African library gives readers the chance to shift their perspective and learn first-hand about the continent that has shaped our community.  

The Pan-African library’s unique mix of titles and categories is a window into the rich tapestry of Pan-African experience.  The library will no doubt grow and change with the community that enjoys it.