Director, John Gray
30 Marion Street
Nyack, NY 10960
"Don't expect the answers to come to you. Don't wait for a leader to rise
up and take you someplace. If you want information, and we have plenty,
come and take it from us. It's on you. If you want to go out and begin
something, you have to organize and study. You have to try many things
before you may find some success. We are here to give you the help of
our experience and knowledge, but now is the time of your generation and
only you can make the choices."CLEVELAND SELLERS - SNCC
THE CENTER: Founded in 1989, the Black Arts Research Center is an archival
resource center dedicated to the documentation, preservation and dissemination
of the African cultural legacy. Resources include some 2300 recordings, cassettes
and videotapes, 1300 books and journals, 500 clippings files and a bibliographic
database with more than 50,000 entries. These materials now offer one of the richest
resources ever on the Black presence in the performing arts.BLACK ARTS DATABASE: Unique among all existing computer resources this database
offers the first comprehensive coverage ever of Black activities in, and
contributions to, music, dance, theatre, film, and traditional religion/healing.
Whether the searcher is interested in works on John Coltrane or Juju Music, Malawian
malipenga dances or break dance, Ousmane Sembene or Spike Lee, Wole Soyinka
or Ntozake Shange, Santeria or Vodun, they will be able to find it here.
The product of more than a decade of research in standard and not so standard
indexes, encyclopedias, dictionary catalogues, computer databases and more, the
Black Arts Database is proof positive of the richness of the Black experience.
For those involved in cross-cultural or inter-disciplinary studies this is
both an invaluable reference tool and a major time saver.SERVICES: In addition to its research and publication activities, the Black
Arts Research Center also offers personalized computer services, tailored to
meet the needs of individual scholars, students and librarians. Costs for
the service vary according to the complexity of the search request and
the number of citations located, and consist of an initial search fee plus
a small printing charge.THE DIRECTOR: John Gray is a cultural historian specializing in Black
culture and the performing arts. His writings include Fire Music: A Bibliography
of the New Jazz, 1959-1990 (1991), African Music (1991), Blacks in Film and
Television (1990), Black Theatre and Performance (1990), Ashe, Traditional
Religion and Healing in sub-Saharan Africa and the Diaspora (1989) and Blacks
in Classical Music (1988), all published by Greenwood Press. Mr. Gray's
current project is a multi-volume bibliography on sacred, folk and popular
music idioms of the African Diaspora.
Back to my Home Page
Click here for publications list