This page is no longer being updated. Please see the primary source section of the African American History subject guide for an updated list of sources.
African American History
| General History | Civil War & Slavery | Civil Rights | Sites Arranged Chronologically | Biographies |
For other sites related to African American history see American History to 1865, American History from 1865 and State History.
General History
Civil War & Slavery
- African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Historical Society exhibit features 117 documents including letters, warrants, bills of sale and antislavery material. Also see the Society's Images of the Antislavery Movement in Massachusetts.
- Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy
Data documenting "slave names, genders, ages, occupations, illnesses, family relationships, ethnicity, places of origin, prices paid by slave owners, and slaves' testimony and emancipations" on over 100,000 slaves in Louisiana during the 18th and 19th centuries.
- Amistad trial site
Fulltext of the Amistad decision plus links to other relevant sites.
- Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in America: A Visual Record
Hundreds of images depicting slavery and the slave trade, includes maps, illustrations and photographs.
- Beyond Face Value: Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency
Exhibit by Louisiana State University depicting currency from the Confederate states.
- Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project 1936-1938
American Memory collection of more than 2,300 first person accounts of slavery plus 500 photographs. The narratives formed the content of the 17 volume printed set, Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Also listen to interviews of 23 former slaves in the American Memory collection, Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories.
- Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery & Justice
Collection of 18th and early 19th century compiled by a committee looking into Brown University's historical relationship with slavery.
- The California Underground Railroad
Digital archive of newspapers, manuscripts and other material documenting the experiences of African American slaves in California.
- Death or Liberty Exhibition
Exhibition at the Library of Virginia covering Gabriel's Conspiracy in 1800, Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831 and the Harpers Ferry raid of 1859. Includes a selection of
transcribed and digtitized documents.
- Diary of a Contraband
Diary of William B. Gould who served as a Black sailor during the Civil War.
- The Dred Scott Case
Collection of 85 digitized and transcribed St. Louis Circuit Court records that document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation. Also see the items included in the Secession Era Editorials Project.
- Freedom's Journal
Project by the Wisconsin Historical Society to digitize all 103 issues of the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States (1827-1829).
- Geography of Slavery in Virginia
"The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers."
- Monticello Plantation Database
Database of information to more than 600 individuals "who lived in slavery on Thomas Jefferson's Virginia plantations."
- North American Slave Narratives
A collection of "approximately two hundred texts, including all known narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides, pamphlets, or book form in English up to 1920 and many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves published in English before 1920." Also see American
Slave Narratives, Third Person, First Person, selected documents from the Freedmen and Southern Society Project and African-American Women.
- Roanoke Island Freedmens Colony
Collection of documents and other resources dealing with the colony of former slaves on Roanoke Island in 1863.
- Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
Digitized collection of thousands of anti-slavery and abolitionist material from Cornell University. Also see Antislavery in New England.
- Slaves and the Courts
"Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860, contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States." Part of American Memory.
- Virginia Emigrants to Liberia
This is a "searchable database of nearly 3700 Virginia emigrants to Liberia" plus relevant documents and timeline. Also see Liberian Letters for digitized version of letters from some of these emigrants and Maps of Liberia 1830-1870.
- Voyages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database
Data on almost 35,000 slaving voyages supplemented with images, a names database and other material. Also see DPLS Archive: Slave Movement During the 18th and 19th Centuries.
Civil Rights
- Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive
The University of Michigan Library's Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive "contains documents and images which chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present." Also see the Library of Congress exhibit With an Even Hand, Eisenhower documents on Little Rock and An Imperfect Revolution: Voices from the Desegregation Era.
- Civil Rights Digital Library
Searchable clearinghouse of civil rights websites.
- Civil Rights Documentation Project
Project emphasizing civil rights legislation from 1963-1965 includes primary sources and a timeline.
- Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive
Project which will "result in the creation of an Internet-accessible, fully searchable database of digitized versions of rare and unique library and archival resources on race relations in Mississippi." Includes a collection of oral histories, photographs, and a selection of manuscript materials including letters and diaries.
- Civil Rights Special Collection
Collection of primary sources, media, interviews and lesson plans.
- Crossroads to Freedom
"Crossroads to Freedom is a digital archive of materials that documents the Civil Rights era in Memphis, Tennessee."
- Documenting the Civil Rights Struggle in Arkansas
"This collection of images, broadsides, pamphlets, and publications documents the changing nature of civil rights in Arkansas from the territorial period through today."
- Duluth Lynchings Online Resources
A digital collection of more than 2,000 pages of primary sources dealing with the lynching of three Black men on June 15, 1920. Also see Atlanta 1906: A Race Riot and Tulsa Race Riot photograph collection and report.
- Freedom Now
Collection of documents and photographs illustrating the history of the Mississippi Freedom Movement.
- Historical Publications of the United States Civil Rights Commission
Digitized collection of documents from the Commission dating from 1957 to 2006 from the Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland.
- History of Jim Crow
Teacher's companion site to the PBS documentary, "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow," includes photographs, personal narratives, essays and lesson plans.
- Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
Museum at Ferris State University provides images of racist objects, images and cartoons along with essays.
- Land of (Unequal) Opportunity
Records and photographs that document the history of civil rights in Arkansas.
- Milburn (Mississippi Burning) Investigation
948 pages of FBI documents concerning the murder of 3 civil rights workers in Miburn, Mississippi in 1964. Part of the FBI FOIA Electronic Reading Room.
- Oral Histories of the American South - Civil Rights
Collection of oral histories from a number of Southern oral history programs.
- Papers of Justice Tom C. Clark
Papers of the Supreme Court justice dealing with civil rights cases of the 1950s.
- Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore
Exhibit of Moore's, a photographer for Life, photographs depicting the civil rights movement.
- Race and Place: An African-American Community in the Jim Crow South: Charlottesville, VA
"Is an archive about the racial segregation laws, or the 'Jim Crow' laws from the late 1880s until the mid-twentieth century." The archive also includes newspaper articles and photographs.
- Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
"This multi-media web site brings the vital history of Seattle's civil rights movements to life with dozens of streaming-video oral histories, and hundreds of rare photographs, documents, movement histories, and personal biographies."
- Trials of the Scottsboro Boys
Site documenting the 1930's trials of the Scottsboro boys includes excerpts from court documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, letters, photographs and biographies. Part of the Famous Trials of the 20th Century site.
- Sovereignty Commission Online
"The files of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, the state's official counter civil rights agency from 1956 to 1973."
- Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970
Collection of digitized news segments from two Roanoke, Virginia tv stations (WDBJ and WSLS) plus documents and oral histories.
- Voices of Civil Rights
A collection of "thousands of personal stories, oral histories, and personal artifacts of the Civil Rights Movement" collected by the Library of Congress. Also see African American Oral History Collection, Greensboro Voices and Civil Rights Oral History Interviews.
- Without Sanctuary
Website that accompanies book with the same title with graphic photographs of lynchings.
Sites Arranged Chronologically
- Tangled Roots
This project produced by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition is a collection of primary documents from the 17th century to the present "about the shared history of African Americans and Irish Americans." Also see the center's archive of more than 200 digitized items dealing with African American history.
- The African-American Migration Experience
"The site, created
by New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,
makes accessible to the general public more than 16,500 pages of essays,
books, articles, and manuscripts, 8,300 illustrations, 100 lesson plans, and
60 maps that will help users understand the peoples, places, and the events
that have shaped African America's migration traditions of the past four
hundred years."
- The Church in the Southern Black Community
Collection of publications beginning with the Revolutionary period and ending in the early 20th century.
- African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920
Digital collection includes manuscripts, newspaper and magazine articles, photographs and pamphlets. Part of American Memory. Also see Hartford Black History Project exhibit.
- Images of African Americans from the 19th Century
Collection of photographs from the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.
- From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection 1824-1909
397 pamphlets published from 1824 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics. Part of American Memory.
- African-American
Pamphlets
"The Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection presents a panoramic and
eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost
one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth
centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900." Part of American Memory.
- Black Archives of America
"Images are drawn from Black Archives of Mid-America collections. Materials selected include photographs, manuscripts, local written histories, African American newspapers, and pamphlets. Artifacts are from the 19th and 20th centuries and depict African American heritage in the Midwest and the World." Focus on African Americans in Missouri.
- The Blues, Black Vaudeville and the Silver Screen, 1912-1930s
Digitized selections from the Douglass Theatre in Macon, Georgia. The collection includes correspondence, financial records, contracts, and advertising materials.
- Harlem History
"Harlem History presents a wealth of archival treasures and scholarship from Columbia about the history of one of the world's most famous and influential neighborhoods."
- The Reflector
Selections from an African American newspaper published in Charlottesville, Virginia from 1933 to 1935.
- Teenie Harris Archive
Collection of photographs taken by Teenie Harris during his tenure with the Pittsburg Courier. Photographs span from 1930s to the 1960s.
- The Truman Administration and the Desegregation of the Armed Forces
Collection of digitized documents from the Truman Library dating from 1938 through 1957. Includes a chronology.
- The FBI Freedom
of Information Act Electronic Reading Room
Full-text FBI documents on a number of people including Thurgood Marshall, Paul and Eslanda Robeson, Clarence 13X Smith, Jackie Robinson, Wallace D. Fard.
- Black Panther Party Sound Recording Project
Selection of speeches, broadcasts and other recordings of Black Panther Party members.
- The Ten O'Clock News
Digitized videoclips from Boston's WGBH's news program. The newsclips date from 1974 to 1991 and focus on Boston's African American community.
Biographies
- Marcus Garvey & UNIA Papers Project
Web site accompanying the publication of Garvey's papers, includes sample documents, narrative and some photographs.
- "Born
in the Wake of Freedom:" John Mitchell, Jr., and the Richmond
Planet
The history of the oldest African American newspaper and it's
most famous editor. An exhibit created by the Virginia Newspaper Project.
- The Frederick Douglass Papers
The first release of this Library of Congress collection contains over 2000 items and "contains the writings of Douglass and such contemporaries in the abolitionist and early women's rights movements as Henry Ward Beecher, Ida B. Wells, Gerrit Smith, Horace Greeley, and others." Part of American Memory.
- Du Bois Central
University of Massachusetts Amherst provides a biography, exhibits, photographs and selected books and articles by W.E.B. Du Bois.
- The
Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences
Fairly extensive biographies of African American scientists. Entries
include photograph and bibliography.
- Malcolm X: A Research Site
"This web page is designed to be a resource for scholarship in Black Studies and the political development of activists in the Black Liberation Movement." Includes an extensive chronology and some audio clips.
- Martin
Luther King, Jr. Project
Project sponsored by Stanford University and the MLK Center for
Nonviolent Social Change. Includes a brief, selected documents, and a searchable database of transcriptions of MLK papers and secondary works. Also see the MLK Newspaper Archive.
- Reflections of Black History
Memoir of Thomas C. Fleming, black journalist and co-founder of the Sun-Reporter, Northern California's largest weekly African American newspaper. The memoir covers most of the 20th century.
- Booker T. Washington Papers
"The Booker T. Washington Papers Online is a completely free and searchable web site designed to provide researchers worldwide with full access to the thousands of pages comprising this 14-volume printed work, originally published by the University of Illinois Press."
Image: Photograph by Russell Lee, "Negro boys on Easter morning. Southside, Chicago, Illinois." 1941. Courtesy of American Memory's America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945.
