This exhibition explores the fraught, circuitous and unfinished course of emancipation over the nineteenth century in Cuba and the United States. People — enslaved individuals and outside observers, survivors and resistors, and activists and conspirators — made and unmade emancipation, a process that remains unfinished and unrealized. Exhibit Tours Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Rachel Bohlmann at (574) 631-1575 or Bohlmann.2@nd.edu. Additional curator-led tours are open to the public at noon on the following Fridays:Sept. 1 Sept. 15 Sept. 22 Oct. 13 Oct. 27 Nov. 17This exhibit is curated by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator, and Erika Hosselkus, Latin American Studies Curator and Associate University Librarian. This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment. All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours. Open to undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, faculty, staff, the  public, alumni and friends.

Decades before Alex Haley’s Roots swept to No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List in 1976, writing and editing produced by African Americans was central to twentieth-century American publishing. Literary production was interracial. View examples of mid-century books by African Americans whose designs — from dust jackets to illustrations to bindings and paper quality — conveyed their centrality in publishing and American literature. This exhibit is curated by Korey Garibaldi, asociate professor of American Studies, and Rachel Bohlmann, curator of North Americana at Hesburgh Libraries. This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment. All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours. Open to undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, faculty, staff, the public, alumni and friends.

From its origins on campus in the late nineteenth century, football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities has held a central place in the African American sporting experience, in the landscape of Black higher education, and in the broader African American community. During the era of Jim Crow segregation, the vast majority of African American college students and student athletes attended HBCUs. Over the first half of the twentieth century, many of the yearly gridiron contests between rival HBCUs developed into highly anticipated annual events that combined football with larger celebrations of African American achievement and excellence. The yearly games brought together members of the African American community and came to include a wide range of associated events including dances, parades, musical shows, fundraising drives, and other festivities. We are pleased to exhibit a selection of sources from the Joyce Sports Research Collection that preserve the history of HBCU football. The programs, media guides, ephemera, guidebooks, and other printed material on display document the athletic accomplishments, the celebrations, the spectacle, and the community-building that accompany football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This exhibit is curated by Greg Bond, curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection and the Sports Subject Specialist for Hesburgh Libraries. This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment. All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours. Open to undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, faculty, staff, the public, alumni and friends.