The Cave Canem Records contain correspondence (including electronic mail), organizational records, photographs, financial records, computer files, and audiovisual recordings that document the activities of Cave Canem Foundation, Inc. and its founders Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady. The organization's governance, fundraising, publicity, and operations are documented as well as its publishing activity, fellowship program, and Legacy Conversations series, which features poets and scholars who have played historic roles in African American poetry. The collection serves as a resource for scholarship on African American poetry, literature, and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.