The Black Studies Centre fonds contains materials documenting the administration, services, and activities of the Black Studies Centre from its beginnings as the National Black Coalition Quebec Institute of Research until 2014. The fonds also documents the Centre’s role within Montreal’s Black communities, as well as its relationships to other organizations working within and outside Montreal. In addition, the Black Studies Centre fonds is an important source of reference documentation pertaining to the history, culture, and contributions of Black communities in Canada: it contains a rich collection of newspapers, periodicals, and books, dating from 1969 to 2012, including but not limited to copies of Contrast (1969-1999), Community Contact (1998-2008), Afro-Can (1981-1984), Focus Umoja (1974-1978), Uhuru (1969-1970), and Umoja (1969-1970, 1990), as well as books that were previously held in the collection of the Black Studies Centre’s Library.
The fonds is divided into the following series:
F034/A Administration
F034/B Financial records
F034/C External relations
F035/D Programming and Services
F035/E Research
F035/F Reference documentation
The Black Studies Centre fonds contains, among other documents, meeting minutes, agendas, reports, policies, correspondence, letters patent, statistics, photographs, architectural plans, deeds of sale, insurance policies, permits, contracts, agreements, organizational charts, resumes, job descriptions, lists, financial documents, grant applications, brochures, by-laws, directories, newspapers and newspaper articles, press releases, newsletters, leaflets, flyers, invitations, catalogs, notes, index cards, moving images, sound recordings, posters, biographies, schedules, attendance records, stories, poems, song texts, drawings, forms, costumes, research papers, bibliographies, bibliographic records, interview transcripts, reproductions of historical documents, speeches, summaries of newspaper articles, accession records, subscriptions, a guest book, books, magazines, periodicals, and a musical instrument.