The Black History and Culture Evergreen Initiative is an effort to foreground African American and Black authored holdings in Princeton University Library, and to allow digital access to them around the world. The ongoing collection and digitization of materials supports teaching and research initiatives in reconstructing social, cultural, artistic, historic, economic, and political worlds that the dominant historical record has ignored, neglected or obscured.

After nearly 60 years of collecting, Sid Lapidus ’59 has presented to the Library more than 2700 volumes representing the fruits of his enthusiasm. Broadly conceived, the collection charts the definition and re-definiton of rights and liberties endemic to Western political traditions. The main focus is texts and documents relating to the American Revolution, its run-up dating back to the Commonwealth men, and coming down to documents of the early Federal government.