L.A. COLLECTION A HISTORICAL TREASURE.

Byline: MICHAEL BARADI Local View

BLACK History Month was initially called ``Negro History Week'' -- in February 1926. But the political upheavals of the 1960s helped it become a monthlong celebration.

A slave's son, Carter Godwin Woodson, founded that initial weeklong celebration. He was born in 1875, a decade after the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. Although Woodson began high school at age 20, he later studied at the University of Chicago and the Sorbonne in France, eventually earning a doctorate in history at Harvard University in 1912.

Some of Woodson's early publications are housed in the little-known Mayme A. Clayton Library here in the West Adams district of Los Angeles.

According to the library's Web site (wsbrec.org), the collection includes roughly 30,000 rare and out-of-print books written by and about African-Americans; the world's largest collection of 16-mm films made by African-Americans; 75,000 photographs; 9,500 sound recordings and tens of thousands of documents, manuscripts and correspondence. Mayme Clayton's son, Avery Clayton, is the library's executive director.

But while the Web site doesn't include an online catalog of the vast collection, it expresses a vision for the collection's permanent future home. This future space is called the Western States Black Research and Educational Center/Mayme A. Clayton Library and Cultural Center, ``a world-class research library, museum, repository and media-based cultural institution that stands as an international tribute to African American intelligence, creativity and nobility.''

This grand project could be Los Angeles' answer to New York's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture that considers itself ``one of the world's leading research facilities devoted to the preservation of materials on the global African and African diasporan experiences.''

According to a USC feasibility study about the Clayton collection, there is a need to establish ``revenue streams from the collection and program activities that will allow the Mayme A. Clayton Library to be a financially self-sustained institution, thereby ensuring its success and longevity.'' In other words, Mayme Clayton's vision needs sufficient funds for basic operations.

According to The Washington Post, Clayton's son has assembled many volunteers and politicians to work on the project, which needs to raise $7 million. Various universities have agreed to provide the necessary technical assistance. And Culver City is leasing him a 24,000-square-foot former courthouse for the facility -- at just a dollar a year.

Already, we see that the spirit of interagency collaboration can help raise the financial and political influence to create the library's future home.

But unlike the Schomburg Collection, which is incorporated into the New York Public Library system, the Clayton library is unincorporated. Thus, it may make sense to study the possibility of making the Clayton collection one of the branches of the Los Angeles Public Library -- a branch that is not simply a branch, but also a research and cultural center that respects the vision of Mayme Clayton.

The LAPL's probable partnership with the Clayton Library would no doubt expand our city's knowledge of American history. The Board of Library Commissioners, city librarian Fontayne Holmes, the Clayton Library management and other concerned parties ought to explore the realistic possibilities of such a marriage.

A former UCLA law librarian herself, Mayme Clayton once said in an interview: ``(T)he collection is not just for black people. Many people of all backgrounds are interested in the accomplishments and history of African-Americans and have a difficult time finding resource materials in traditional public libraries and schools.''

Indeed, diverse Los Angeles is bound to be very interested in the Clayton collection because the lifeblood of America's highly textured history is often filtered through African-American history.