Howard Dobson: chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the N.Y. Public Library

Ebony, Feb, 2005

HOWARD DODSON is the chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, a comprehensive public research library devoted exclusively to documenting and interpreting African-American history and culture. Named to the post in 1984, Dodson completed a major renovation that created the Langston Hughes Auditorium.

He also completed a $15.2 million campaign and doubled the center's collections to more than 5 million items. He formerly served as a consultant in the Office of the Chairman of the National Endowment for Humanities in Washington, D.C., and in several capacities with the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta. He has taught at California State College at Haywood, Emory University, Shaw University, the City University of New York and Columbia University. Dodson served as chair of the federal steering committee on the African burial ground and director of the research study to establish the New York State Freedom Trail. A member of the board for the Apollo Theater, he is single and has two adult children.