The Activist Collector: Lida Clanton Broner's 1938 Journey from Newark to South Africa
Christa Clarke
Rutgers University Press
In 1938 Lida Clanton Broner, an African American hairstylist and housekeeper from Newark, New Jersey, traveled to pre-apartheid South Africa, fulfilling a lifelong goal of visiting the continent of her ancestors. As she traveled through South African giving speeches on race pride to social clubs, schools, and especially to women's groups, Broner amassed a collection of handicraft given by the many people she met "to show in America".
Art historian and curator Christa Clarke has pursued the threads of Broner's collection, artfully weaving together people and ideas across the Atlantic connected by a shared vision of black liberation. By reconstructing the journey of this intrepid collector and her activist exhibitions, the book brings to life the story of an "ordinary" woman from Newark who was, in fact, quite extraordinary.