Dorothy Burnett Porter was an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 librarian

Librarian

A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...

 who built the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center

Moorland-Spingarn Research Center

The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center is recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world...

 at Howard University

Howard University

Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

 into a world-class research collection.

Porter received a B.A. from Howard University

Howard University

Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

 in 1928. She studied at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, earning B.S. in 1931 and M.S. in 1932 in library science. She was the first African American to graduate from Columbia's library school.

Her husband was the historian and artist James A. Porter

James Amos Porter

James Amos Porter was a pioneer in establishing the field of African-American art history. He was instrumental as the first scholar to provide a systematic, critical analysis of African-American artists and their works of art. An artist himself, he provided a unique and critical approach to the...

, author of Modern Negro Art.