Charles LeRoy Blockson

Charles Blockson died June 14, 2023. A distinguished collector, bibliophile, curator, and scholar of the African American experience, Blockson began collecting books when still young, after a teacher told him that “Negroes have no history.” Blockson donated his collection of twenty thousand books, documents, and photographs to Temple University in 1984. The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection—which he continued to curate until retiring in 2006—became one of the U.S.’s leading research centers for the study of people of African descent, now containing more than seven hundred thousand objects. He also cofounded the African American Museum in Philadelphia and wrote thirteen books.