LIBRARY OF LIGHT

Directory of Diasporic & Pan-African Archives

by Samuel Dapper on Oct 16, 2025
Directory of Diasporic & Pan-African Archives

DAP LUXE invites artists, scholars, and seekers to participate in this living archive. Our Directory of Diasporic & Pan-African Archives maps research centers across the world — from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Harlem) to the George Padmore Library (Accra), the Walter Rodney Archives (Guyana), the Africana Library (Cape Town), and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (Washington D.C.). Each is a portal in a planetary web of memory.

We stand in a lineage that extends from the libraries of Kemet to the community reading rooms of today. The task before us is not to reinvent knowledge, but to remember, to literally rejoin the body of wisdom dismembered by empire.

Librarians are not merely keepers of books; they are healers of collective amnesia.
When we document, digitize, and design with intention, we reclaim not just information but initiation. The library becomes a temple once more — a site where culture, spirit, and design converge to generate new worlds. Librarianship is regeneration in practice.

 

North America

  • Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (NYC, USA) — premier archive of African American & African diaspora history, 11M+ items.
  • Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (Howard Univ., DC, USA) — one of the largest repositories on the global Black experience. 
  • Amistad Research Center (New Orleans, USA) — independent Black history archive (900+ collections, 250k+ photos).
  • Auburn Avenue Research Library (Atlanta, USA) — archives + non-circulating research library on African American culture. 
  • Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection (Temple Univ., USA) — 500k+ items on the global Black experience. 
  • Meek-Eaton Black Archives (FAMU, USA) — Southeastern U.S. Black history collections + digital archive.
  • Black Archives of Mid-America (Kansas City, USA) — Midwest collections, oral histories, exhibitions. 
  • The HistoryMakers (Chicago, USA) — largest African American video oral history archive.
  • NMAAHC (Smithsonian, USA) – Archives/Collections — 45k+ objects incl. archival materials.
  • Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia (Canada) — museum + library resource centre for African Nova Scotian history. 
  • Buxton National Historic Site & Museum (Ontario, Canada) — Underground Railroad community archive & research centre. 
  • Archives of Ontario – Black History Guides (Canada) — research guides & records portal. 

Caribbean

  • National Library of Jamaica (Kingston) — national legal-deposit library; West Indies & Special Collections at UWI Mona. 
  • UWI Mona – West Indies & Special Collections (Jamaica) — premier research collections on the Caribbean. 
  • NALIS – Heritage Library (Trinidad & Tobago) — national system with Caribbean heritage & digital collections.
  • Barbados Archives Department (Bridgetown) — national archives; genealogy & colonial records; dLOC portal. 
  • Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) — regional access hub (partners across the Caribbean). 

Africa (West, North, East, Central & Southern)

  • George Padmore Research Library (Accra, Ghana) — public research library; ISSN national centre. 
  • CBAAC – Centre for Black & African Arts and Civilization (Lagos, Nigeria) — Pan-African heritage & FESTAC ’77 legacy. 
  • National Archives of Nigeria (HQ Abuja; Ibadan/Kaduna/Enugu branches) — national archival system. 
  • Kenya National Archives & Documentation Service (Nairobi) — public archives + Murumbi Pan-African art collection. 
  • National Museums of Kenya – Archives (Nairobi) — institutional archives & special collections. 
  • IFAN Cheikh Anta Diop (Dakar, Senegal) — major West African research institute, museum & collections.
  • Ahmed Baba Institute / Timbuktu Manuscripts (Mali) — manuscript library & research centre; repatriation updates. 
  • Al-Qarawiyyin Library (Fez, Morocco) — among the world’s oldest operating libraries. 
  • Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Alexandria, Egypt) — modern research complex with rare books & manuscript labs.
  • National Records Office of Sudan (Khartoum) — national archives; 30M+ documents, digitization via Sudan Memory. 
  • Ethiopian National Archives & Library Agency (Addis Ababa) — national archive & legal-deposit library.

Europe

  • Black Cultural Archives (Brixton, UK) — national heritage institution for Black British history. 
  • Stuart Hall Library (Iniva, London, UK) — specialist library centering Global Majority & diaspora art/theory. 
  • Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre (Manchester, UK) — open-access library & archive on race, migration, anti-racist activism.
  • International Slavery Museum & Archives Centre (Liverpool, UK) — collections on transatlantic slavery; major redevelopment. 
  • The Black Archives (Amsterdam, NL) — archive of Black emancipation movements in the Netherlands. 

Latin America & the Caribbean Rim

  • IPEAFRO – Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Afro-Brasileiros (Rio, Brazil) — Abdias do Nascimento archives; Memory of the World listing. 
  • Museu Afro Brasil Emanoel Araujo (São Paulo, Brazil) — 20k-item collection; archival & bibliographic holdings. 


Sources & Further Reading

  • Itibari M. Zulu, The Ancient Kemetic Roots of Library and Information Science (2012

  • Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilization or Barbarism (1991)

  • John Henrik Clarke, Africans at the Crossroads (1991)

  • George G.M. James, Stolen Legacy (1954)

  • Asa Hilliard III, Kemetic Concepts in Education (1984)

  • Arthur A. Schomburg, The Negro Digs Up His Past (1925)

  • The Journal of Pan African Studies Archives

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