From Penn State football to guardian of history
When football practice finished, Charles Blockson often drifted away from the rest of his Penn State teammates, from the rest of the world even.
He was a road-grading fullback on the field, opening running lanes for best friend Lenny Moore. But beyond that, he was quiet and reserved, a thinker and a voracious reader. Even more, he would seek out any place with books related to African-American history, buying whatever he could afford.
Always, it seemed, he was determined to preserve and promote the history of black Americans. His perseverance shines through on that 1954 team, arguably the most intriguing combination of achievers the football program has ever known.
Even now, at 82, he is still pursuing his career as an author, lecturer and historian. The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American collection at Temple University includes more than 500,000 pieces, such as books, prints, newspapers, illustrations and written music. It's one of the nation's leading research facilities detailing the history and culture of people of African descent.
Penn State football's grand pedigree was born in 1954
He also has donated a smaller, similar collection to Penn State.
Last winter, Penn State-based WPSU-TV released a 16-minute documentary of his life and his collecting. In it, he said this: "I love the smell of old books. I love the feeling. ... You can always pick them up. You can always read them when you're lonely, when you're curious. Unfortunately, I guess I'm sort of a dying breed. I hope I'm not."
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His quest was born in the fourth grade in Norristown. Blockson tells of how he raised his hand while his white teacher was leading a lesson on American history. He asked if black people possessed their own history.
The answer: "No, Charles, Negroes were born to serve white people."
Those words stung even then, and would forever shape him, as did those stories of his great grandfather escaping slavery along the Underground Railroad, from Delaware to Canada. And how he and his black friends learned to swim in the Schuylkill River because they were not allowed to take lessons at pools.
He said he knew his life's mission as a boy.
After Penn State, he taught history and served as human relations adviser for the Norristown Area School District. But that was just a part of a much larger calling: Illuminating the history of blacks would become his way to fight discrimination. That led him on lecture tours around the world and to write books and magazine articles, including a 37-page feature on the Underground Railroad for National Geographic.
He acquired personal artifacts from African-American leaders such as actor, athlete and activist Paul Robeson, poet Phillis Wheatley and abolitionist Harriet Tubman. He donated some of Tubman's belongings to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture. A Chicago Tribune article describes Smithsonian director Lonnie Bunch breaking into tears when discovering that Blockson truly possessed rare photographs of Tubman as well as her shawl and hymnal.
Some of the books and manuscripts he's collected date to the 16th and 17th centuries.
"He saw a vision for his life, leaving a tremendous history behind," said Cheraine Stanford, director and producer at WPSU. "It was a passion for him. He still can't help collecting now. He'll say he's slowed down, but he can't help it. ... He said it's felt like something he had to do."
Blockson said he doesn't seek notoriety for his profound collections. Rather, it is about shining a light on those who came before him and promoting a better future for those who come after.
"I hope that I have given to the world something of myself, part of my soul, (and) to whoever accepted it, they would pass it on," he said in the documentary film. "Knowledge belongs to the world."
