'The Circle Unbroken:' Minnesota collection spans 250+ years of African American archives
"Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" by Phillis Wheatley.
Image courtesy the Givens Collection of African American Literature
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: A University of Minnesota literature collection is celebrating more than 40 years of preserving African-American heritage and culture. The Givens Collection contains more than 8,000 books, manuscripts, photos, and personal papers. It just wrapped up an exhibit to commemorate its beginnings. And the curator of the collection is Davu Underwood Seru, who is here now to talk about 40 years of preserving this literature. Davu, thanks for joining us.
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Thank you for having me.
NINA MOINI: What a rich history here. I understand the collection started in 1985. It's hard to, I'm sure, put into words the past 40 years of the Collection. But if you had to summarize for people who may not be familiar, what is the impact of this years of this Givens Collection?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Well, you have the curator on the phone right now who is a direct descendant product of the work that a coalition of scholars, administrators, philanthropists, people with Minnesota on their mind, people with African-American cultural community and, of course, education on their minds who gathered up this remarkable collection and brought it to us for our sake.
I mean, I joke with people that I had no clue as a student, young student at Minneapolis North in the 1990s, that the courses in the Harlem Renaissance that we were getting taught to us by George Roberts at North, an English-- our English teacher, were directly affected by the presence of the Givens Collection on campus, because public educators in the state would meet over the summers and take courses on African-American literature, in particular the Harlem Renaissance, led by my teacher, Dr. John S. Wright, and then come back and teach us.
And so I come back to the collection as a curator and have spent a great deal of my time telling the story, learning the story to tell it of, again, this group of predominantly composed of these 11 families that made up a Patron's Council that helped to raise the funds to make sure that the collection would come here under Dr. John S. Wright's leadership. And so we're proud of it. It spans 253 years of American culture. It continues to grow.
There is technological advancements, thanks to the internet, that have been implemented, like, Umbra Search African-American History, a web tool for people interested in African-American history that gives you access to about 1,000 archives in the country. And so, yeah, it's had quite an impact on our local community and the country.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. And you, right? Your former professor, Wright, that you talked about, I was reading up on this and it said that in 1963, when he was there, there were about 100 Black students at the university at the time and that people really had to find each other, to try to put this together and build in that way. So that significance now so many years later, is it hard to convey to maybe even younger folks or people what that has meant just for African-American culture, literature, and just the studies, the department?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: I don't find it hard to do. I think that it's just that nobody's ever taken it up. We also-- at the university, remember, the university mostly while providing opportunities for Minnesotans, also attracts people from elsewhere who come for a time and leave. And so institutional memory is difficult to maintain. We've been-- I mean, John S. Wright was also involved in the Morrill Hall takeover and the development of Black studies on campus. The Givens Collection is a direct legacy of that.
The Patron's Council, John S. Wright, the people who came together in 1985 to bring the Givens Collection to campus, are also participating in a tradition of African-American cultural leadership that goes back to the 19th century. The exhibit we just had, The Circle Unbroken, help to tell that story. Groups like the Robert Banks Literary Society operating out of Rondo, the Golden Key Club in South Minneapolis, the Interstate Literary Club of Duluth, beginning in the 19th century, would gather around literature to do the work of what then would have been called racial uplift. The Givens Collection's founding in 1985 is a part of that legacy, and we continue with that work.
NINA MOINI: Tell me a little bit more about The Circle Unbroken and why that was a fitting name.
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Well, it comes from a gospel tune of hymn, and we're thinking a lot about the circle, the Patron's Council working with John Wright and administrators, again, and philanthropists in this community who would form a circle, that we need to remember. We need to remember. Again, folks working across culture and color and whatnot at a time in 1985 where there was still-- I mean, all the textbooks when I was a kid still said Negro.
And Dr. King was at the center of our education is often because we were remembering what had just happened in our culture, in our country. And so there's the need to organize in a circle, so to speak. Remains-- it's clearly needed still, but has been meaningful. Again, we want to pay homage, sing the praises of people who have been dedicated, committed, who did not just wander this wilderness alone, but understood the value of finding your people and doing work together for everybody's-- so that others might do better too.
NINA MOINI: Is there a piece of literature or an item that you always find yourself thinking of or wanting to show maybe first when there are visitors to the Givens Collection?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Yes, and that is the first work, first book to be published by an African-American, Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, from 1773. It is a-- I mean, when we were-- if we bother to remember, it was produced by an enslaved girl from West Africa who, between the ages of 8 and 20, mastered Latin, Greek, English verse, became one of the world's premier neoclassical poets and would speak directly to the founding fathers. She dined with Washington at Cambridge, Ben Franklin.
Thomas Jefferson writes about her book to disparage her-- to discredit her in his notes on the State of Virginia because they couldn't ignore. And this collection that she left behind, her one published book, again, starts a tradition of African-American writing that I am a student of and that I believe and we all believe, folks who love the Givens Collection, needs to continue.
NINA MOINI: I loved what you said about if people bother to remember, just continuing on talking about things and educating a new generations. I understand that's probably part of the reason that you're hosting an intergenerational discussion series called Embracing Our Roots, and I understand there's one coming up Saturday afternoon with two local choreographers and dancers. Can you tell me about this series and this event, and how people can get involved?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Oh, yes. So Embracing Our Roots, Rooted and Rising, is a series that the Givens Collection has partnered with More Than a Single Story, and In Black Ink Publishing Arts initiative, two community-based organizations who help us to identify folks in the community for discussion. Again, this is intergenerational. One of the things you learn is if you're in the art scene in particular that is dominated by young people, is that there's little memory of what came before them.
People can fall into the bad habit of thinking, when you're young especially, that you've invented things and you don't see the work-- you don't see the work that older generations have done. And so we get people together, not so that the elders can talk down to the youth, but so that people can gain a better understanding of one's life's work. We bring the archive out to add material evidence of the cultural legacy. The community comes out to campus and it tends to feel like a family affair.
It's been my honor to work with Carolyn Holbrook, who leads More Than a Single Story, and Rekhet Si-Asar of In Black Ink. And this is maybe the seventh in a series of discussions. There are more coming. There's one in April, which will feature actually Carolyn Holbrook with Arleta Little in conversation. And so, yeah, we'll be gathering on Saturday.
NINA MOINI: Amazing. Davu, thank you very much for coming by Minnesota Now and sharing with us. Really appreciate you and your time.
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Thank you.
NINA MOINI: That was Davu Underwood Seru, curator of the Givens Collection at the University of Minnesota.
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Thank you for having me.
NINA MOINI: What a rich history here. I understand the collection started in 1985. It's hard to, I'm sure, put into words the past 40 years of the Collection. But if you had to summarize for people who may not be familiar, what is the impact of this years of this Givens Collection?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Well, you have the curator on the phone right now who is a direct descendant product of the work that a coalition of scholars, administrators, philanthropists, people with Minnesota on their mind, people with African-American cultural community and, of course, education on their minds who gathered up this remarkable collection and brought it to us for our sake.
I mean, I joke with people that I had no clue as a student, young student at Minneapolis North in the 1990s, that the courses in the Harlem Renaissance that we were getting taught to us by George Roberts at North, an English-- our English teacher, were directly affected by the presence of the Givens Collection on campus, because public educators in the state would meet over the summers and take courses on African-American literature, in particular the Harlem Renaissance, led by my teacher, Dr. John S. Wright, and then come back and teach us.
And so I come back to the collection as a curator and have spent a great deal of my time telling the story, learning the story to tell it of, again, this group of predominantly composed of these 11 families that made up a Patron's Council that helped to raise the funds to make sure that the collection would come here under Dr. John S. Wright's leadership. And so we're proud of it. It spans 253 years of American culture. It continues to grow.
There is technological advancements, thanks to the internet, that have been implemented, like, Umbra Search African-American History, a web tool for people interested in African-American history that gives you access to about 1,000 archives in the country. And so, yeah, it's had quite an impact on our local community and the country.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. And you, right? Your former professor, Wright, that you talked about, I was reading up on this and it said that in 1963, when he was there, there were about 100 Black students at the university at the time and that people really had to find each other, to try to put this together and build in that way. So that significance now so many years later, is it hard to convey to maybe even younger folks or people what that has meant just for African-American culture, literature, and just the studies, the department?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: I don't find it hard to do. I think that it's just that nobody's ever taken it up. We also-- at the university, remember, the university mostly while providing opportunities for Minnesotans, also attracts people from elsewhere who come for a time and leave. And so institutional memory is difficult to maintain. We've been-- I mean, John S. Wright was also involved in the Morrill Hall takeover and the development of Black studies on campus. The Givens Collection is a direct legacy of that.
The Patron's Council, John S. Wright, the people who came together in 1985 to bring the Givens Collection to campus, are also participating in a tradition of African-American cultural leadership that goes back to the 19th century. The exhibit we just had, The Circle Unbroken, help to tell that story. Groups like the Robert Banks Literary Society operating out of Rondo, the Golden Key Club in South Minneapolis, the Interstate Literary Club of Duluth, beginning in the 19th century, would gather around literature to do the work of what then would have been called racial uplift. The Givens Collection's founding in 1985 is a part of that legacy, and we continue with that work.
NINA MOINI: Tell me a little bit more about The Circle Unbroken and why that was a fitting name.
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Well, it comes from a gospel tune of hymn, and we're thinking a lot about the circle, the Patron's Council working with John Wright and administrators, again, and philanthropists in this community who would form a circle, that we need to remember. We need to remember. Again, folks working across culture and color and whatnot at a time in 1985 where there was still-- I mean, all the textbooks when I was a kid still said Negro.
And Dr. King was at the center of our education is often because we were remembering what had just happened in our culture, in our country. And so there's the need to organize in a circle, so to speak. Remains-- it's clearly needed still, but has been meaningful. Again, we want to pay homage, sing the praises of people who have been dedicated, committed, who did not just wander this wilderness alone, but understood the value of finding your people and doing work together for everybody's-- so that others might do better too.
NINA MOINI: Is there a piece of literature or an item that you always find yourself thinking of or wanting to show maybe first when there are visitors to the Givens Collection?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Yes, and that is the first work, first book to be published by an African-American, Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, from 1773. It is a-- I mean, when we were-- if we bother to remember, it was produced by an enslaved girl from West Africa who, between the ages of 8 and 20, mastered Latin, Greek, English verse, became one of the world's premier neoclassical poets and would speak directly to the founding fathers. She dined with Washington at Cambridge, Ben Franklin.
Thomas Jefferson writes about her book to disparage her-- to discredit her in his notes on the State of Virginia because they couldn't ignore. And this collection that she left behind, her one published book, again, starts a tradition of African-American writing that I am a student of and that I believe and we all believe, folks who love the Givens Collection, needs to continue.
NINA MOINI: I loved what you said about if people bother to remember, just continuing on talking about things and educating a new generations. I understand that's probably part of the reason that you're hosting an intergenerational discussion series called Embracing Our Roots, and I understand there's one coming up Saturday afternoon with two local choreographers and dancers. Can you tell me about this series and this event, and how people can get involved?
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Oh, yes. So Embracing Our Roots, Rooted and Rising, is a series that the Givens Collection has partnered with More Than a Single Story, and In Black Ink Publishing Arts initiative, two community-based organizations who help us to identify folks in the community for discussion. Again, this is intergenerational. One of the things you learn is if you're in the art scene in particular that is dominated by young people, is that there's little memory of what came before them.
People can fall into the bad habit of thinking, when you're young especially, that you've invented things and you don't see the work-- you don't see the work that older generations have done. And so we get people together, not so that the elders can talk down to the youth, but so that people can gain a better understanding of one's life's work. We bring the archive out to add material evidence of the cultural legacy. The community comes out to campus and it tends to feel like a family affair.
It's been my honor to work with Carolyn Holbrook, who leads More Than a Single Story, and Rekhet Si-Asar of In Black Ink. And this is maybe the seventh in a series of discussions. There are more coming. There's one in April, which will feature actually Carolyn Holbrook with Arleta Little in conversation. And so, yeah, we'll be gathering on Saturday.
NINA MOINI: Amazing. Davu, thank you very much for coming by Minnesota Now and sharing with us. Really appreciate you and your time.
DAVU UNDERWOOD SERU: Thank you.
NINA MOINI: That was Davu Underwood Seru, curator of the Givens Collection at the University of Minnesota.
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