Co-Sponsored Lecture: Christa Clarke, Center for Curatorial Leadership

Co-Sponsored with the African Studies Center

FedEx Global Education Center room 4003

Christa Clarke, Independent Curator and Former Curator of the Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum of Art, will speak on her new book The Activist Collector: Lida Clanton Broner’s 1938 Journey from Newark to South Africa (The Newark Museum of Art and Rutgers University Press).

In 1938 Lida Clanton Broner, an African American resident of Newark, New Jersey, traveled to pre-apartheid South Africa, fulfilling a lifelong goal of visiting the continent of her ancestors. Her nine-month journey was made possible through transatlantic connections, given political purpose through her grassroots activism, and funded with savings from a lifetime of work as a hairstylist and housekeeper. As she traveled throughout South Africa giving speeches on race pride to social clubs, schools, and, especially, to women’s groups, Broner amassed a collection of beadwork, pottery, needlework, and other handicraft given by the many people she met, “to show in America.” By reconstructing the journey of this intrepid collector and her activist exhibitions, Clarke brings to life the story of an “ordinary” woman from Newark who was, in fact, quite extraordinary.