The Charles L. Blockson Collection at Temple University has served as a space that honored the legacy of one of America’s foremost historians and collectors of artifacts on the global Black experience.

The collection, established in 1984, has compiled over 700,000 items from his travels and research, dating back to 1581. This month, Temple will celebrate the collection’s 40th anniversary at the Charles Library.

Blockson began collecting books on Black history to learn more after a Norristown schoolteacher told him that Blacks had no history and were “born to serve white people.”

He also contributed the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and the African Diaspora to Pennsylvania State University, along with items to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Thirty-nine items of that donation were possessions of abolitionist Harriet Tubman. The author, lecturer, and academic worked at Temple until 2006, and died in June 2023 at the age of 89.

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