Primary Sources: Websites & Databases
- Black Life in America This link opens in a new window
This primary source collection focuses on the experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media, from the early 18th century to early 21st century. In includes American and global news sources, as well as current and historical Black publications.
- The African-American Experience in OhioThis digital collection, curated by the Ohio Historical Society, illuminates specific moments in the history of Ohio's African-Americans and provides an overview of their experiences during the time period 1850 to 1920 in the words of the people that lived them. The story of the African-American Experience in Ohio 1850-1920 is more diverse and complex than this collection can adequately portray. All we can hope is to provide the researcher with a place to begin.
- Civil Rights History Project"Online interviews with veterans of the freedom struggle." A collaboration of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture.
- Digital Schomburg"[E]xhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora." From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.
- African American Studies: Library of Congress Online ResourcesA large number of primary source collection materials related to African American history are digitized and available online via the Library of Congress's website, including manuscripts, newspaper articles, images, and rare books. In addition, the Library also provides digital content on African American history through their exhibition program, "Today in History" essays, and online research guides.
- Who Speaks for the Negro?: an archival collectionVanderbilt University provides audio recordings of prominent African Americans who were interviewed for Robert Penn Warren's 1965 book. Interviewees include James Baldwin, Stokely Carmichael, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.
- Documenting the American South (DocSouth)A digital publishing initiative, sponsored by the University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
- Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and CultureThe National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 36,000 artifacts and nearly 100,000 individuals have become members.
- Afro-Americana Imprints 1535-1922 This link opens in a new window
An important collection of Afro-Americana Imprints, 1535-1922 useful to African-American studies. Includes a wide range of archival materials including books, pamphlets and broadsides. Coverage includes the West's discovery and exploitation of Africa; the rise of slavery in the New World; the growth and success of abolitionist movements; the development of racial thought and racism; and descriptions of African American life -- slave and free.
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Brian Olesko
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Subjects: African and African American Studies, Anthropology, Applied Behavioral Sciences, Arabic, Chinese, Communication, Criminal Justice, French, Geography, German, Government Resources, International Studies, Mathematics, Model UN, Modern Languages, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Regional Studies, Sociology, Spanish, Statistical Data, Tests and Measurements, Urban Affairs, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies