When 74-year-old Charles Blockson was in the 4th grade, his teacher told him that black people hadn't contributed anything to history, and he has spent the rest of his life trying to prove her on. Fast forward 65 years, and Blockson has amassed a unique library of 30,000 historical items, some of which date back to the 16th century. The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, which is housed at Temple University, includes African Bibles, slave narratives, Paul Robeson's sheet music, and a first-edition book by W.E.B. Dubois.

Scholars are lucky that Blockson began collecting when he did, said F. Keith Bingham, archivist at historically black Cheyney University near Philadelphia. Many items in the collection might not be available now or would be prohibitively expensive, he said.

Last fall, the University of South Carolina paid $35,000 for a first-edition book by black poet Phillis Wheatley, a slave who once read her work in the presence of George Washington. Blockson said he paid a sliver of that when he acquired his copy 40 years ago.

Today, his collection includes valuable books, pamphlets, posters, taped interviews, artwork and more than 500,000 photographs.

Among the rare acquisitions: a copy of Dale Carnegie's "Lincoln the Unknown." The book's jacket has a patch of tanned skin from a black man, which is embossed with the title.

By 2006, the collection had grown so large it needed to be moved to a larger space. Blockson's book Damn Rare: Memoirs of an African-American Bibliophile details his life-long quest. [MSNBC]