Librarian Creates World Renowned Black History Collection

Avery Clayton sits in front of a portrait of his mother, Mayme Clayton

Photo Credit: Black America Web

Mayme Clayton was passionate about black history. She spent her career as a librarian at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. In the late 1960's, her work was instrumental in the creation of the African-American Studies Center Library at UCLA. She collected a body of material that is now been formalized in a museum. The curators of the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum of African American History & Culture say her collection will rival New York's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in size and significance.

According to an article on blackamericaweb.com, the collection that is currently being cataloged contains:

• the first book published in America by African-born Phillis Wheatley, "Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral." It is signed and dated 1773, when she was a slave in Boston.
  
• the largest black film collection in the world, with 1,700 titles dating back to 1916. It is housed at the UCLA School of Film and Television.
• 9,500 sound recordings. The recordings include the earliest from Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith
• 75,000 photographs and scores of movie posters, playbills, programs, documents and manuscripts

Mayme Clayton invested her time, talent, and financial resources to create and preserve a collection of material that benefits us all. The museum is working toward a 2011 opening. The first major exhibition of this material will be Oct. 24 to Jan. 4, in a joint effort with the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Ms Clayton died in 2006 and her sons, Avery and Lloyd are cataloging her work and helping to establish the museum.

Special thanks to Dr. Harold Massey for sharing this information.

For more information:
Blackamericaweb.com: Mom's Legacy: World Renowned Black Collection
Press Release from the Huntington Library
Mayme A. Clayton Library & Cultural Center (A Division Of Western States Black Research & Education Center) Newsletter and Website