Guide to African American Documentary Resources

Browse websites/collections by Publisher/Affiliation:

[Archives and Historical Societies] [Universities] [Government]
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Stand Alone Archives and Historical Societies

Black Archives of Mid America, Black Archives Digital Image Database www.blackarchives.org/
This digitization project is a collaboration between the Black Archives of Mid-America Inc. and Kansas City Public Library containing over 500 photographs, manuscripts, and local written histories that depict African-American heritage in the Midwest and the world.
HU Archives Net, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center Howard University - The Electronic Journal of the MSRC
http://www.huarchivesnet.howard.edu/
HUArchivesNet is publsihed quarterly by the Mooland-Spingard Research Center, Howard University. The electronic journal serves to link Howard University and WorldCom in an innovative partnership which creates new ways to access one of the finest repsoitories of African and Afrincan American resources through the communication technology of WorldCom's Global Networks.
Indiana Historical Society Library: Black History Program www.indianahistory.org/library/manuscripts/collection_guides/African-American_mss.html
The Black History Program at the Indiana Historical Society was established in 1982 to address the concern for the paucity of records available for conducting research on the history of African Americans in Indiana. The mission of the program is to collect, process, preserve, and disseminate information related to the history of African-American Hoosiers. This site presents the valuable annotated bibliography of manuscript holdings pertaining to blacks in Indiana entitled: Selected African-American History Collections.
Ohio Historical Society, African American Experience in Ohio 1850-1920
dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/index.stm
This digital collection of manuscripts, newspaper articles, serials, photographs, and pamphlets illuminates specific moments in the history of Ohio's African Americans. In addition, it provides an overview of their experiences during the time period 1850 to 1920 in the words of the people who lived them.
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, African American Newpapers and Periodicals slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/~printcul/aanp/
James Danky has led a project to produce a comprehensive guide to newspapers and periodicals of
African-Americans, The African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography and Union List, a
description of 4,000-6,000 titles and their locations. A follow-up grant has been awarded to the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin from the National Endowment for the Humanities to preserve African-American periodicals
on microfilm.

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Universities
Brown University Special Collections , African-American Sheet Music Digitizing Project memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/rpbhtml/aasmhome.html
Brown University, a recipient of the 1996/97 Ameritech/Library of Congress National Digital Library competition award, has digitized a collection of over 1,500 pieces of African American related sheet music from the John Hay Library dating from 1870-1920. It includes many songs and music of antebellum black face minstrelsy in the 1850s, the abolitionist movement, as well as the Civil War Period. The condensed version of this digital collection is part of the American Memory website of the Library of Congress.
Cornell University, Contemporary African Artists Database rmc2.library.cornell.edu/ContemporaryAfricanArt/
This venture funded by the Rockefeller Foundation is a database of contemporary African atists and generate a
series of bio-bibliographical dictionaries, all fully illustrated. It aims to promote networking among african artists
throughout the world and to encourage new initiaitves in the collection, documentation, and dissimination of
contemporary African Art. The database is classified by country and will include artists who have been working
since he 1920's, in addition to important artists from earlier dates. Both database and printed volumes will include sections on public and private art museums, galleries, archives, collections, art shcools, and other
resources relevant to each country.
Cornell University, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections - Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collections, www.library.cornell.edu/mayantislavery/ (Digitization Forthcoming)
In 1870, Andrew Dickson White, the first president of Cornell University, was instrumental in bringing an extensive collection of slavery and abolitionist materials gathered by his close friend, Reverend Samuel Joseph May, to the Cornell Library. Numbering over 10,000 titles, May's pamphlets and leaflets document the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels. Much of the May Anti-Slavery Collection was considered ephemeral or fugitive, and today these pamphlets are quite scarce. Sermons, position papers, offprints, local Anti-Slavery Society newsletters, poetry anthologies, freedmen's testimonies, broadsides, and Anti-Slavery Fair keepsakes all document the social and political implications of the abolitionist movement. The pamphlets in Samuel J. May's great Anti-Slavery library are now available as electronic searchable text for the first time. The May Anti-Slavery pamphlets can be accessed through Cornell's catalog, and by searching the collection from this Web site. By 2004, the collection will be digitized for full online access.
Duke University, African American Women Online Archives Collections
scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/collections/african-american-women.html
This digital collection highlights some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers owned by the
Schomburg Research Center of Black Culture in Harlem. The searchable collection provides access to the
thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published
prior to 1920.
Duke University, Third Person, First Person scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/slavery/
is an exhibit that probes the life experiences of American slaves from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century, and examines the enterprise of recovering and preserving African American history of the period. The exhibit showcases the kinds of rare materials that under scrutiny reveal the ambitions, motivations, and struggles of people often presumed mute.
Hartwick College, United States Colored Troops Institute for Local History and Family Research
www.hartwick.edu/usct/usct.htm
The USCT is an educational institute to promote and encourage original historical and genealogical research about the 200,000 colored men and their 7,000 white officers who comprised the US Colored Troops during the American Civil War. The Institute encourages communities of America (inclusive of the US, Canada and Caribbean nations) to "find" their local USCT members and to place soldiers and their families within a local historical context through educational and commemorative events.
Indiana University, Archives of African American Music & Culture (AAAMC), www.indiana.edu/~aaamc/
Established in 1991, the AAAMC is a repository of photographs, musical and print manuscripts, audio and video recordings, and oral histories of material covering musical idiom and cultural expression from the post-World War II era. None is digitized, but the site provides information about the most notable collections online. Reference services are available (and encouraged) via this site.
Michigan State University, African American Presence at Michigan State University. Pioneers, Groundbreakers, and Leaders 1900-1970 www.msu.edu/unit/msuarhc/africanpresence.htm
This small scale exhibition of 40 black & white photographs honors the African American pioneers of Michigan State University and gives recognition to their achievements.
North Carolina Central, Guide to African American Documentary Resources in North Carolina www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/index.html
This website is a product of the North Carolina African American Archives Group under the Direction of Dean Speller at the School of Library and Information Science at North Carolina Central. Although this site is not searchable, it does provide an overview and guide to the state's holding of African American materials.
Tulane University Amistad Research Center & Louisiana State University
American Missionary Association and the Promise of a Multicultural America: 1839-1954 diglib.lsu.edu/AMA.nsf/web/AMA
The collaboration of the Amistad Research Center and the Louisiana State University Digital Library, through funding provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, has produced a digital collection of national significance entitled "The American Missionary Association and the Promise of a Multicultural America:1839-1954."
University of California at Los Angeles, Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project, A Research Project of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center www.isop.ucla.edu/mgpp/
This site contains a web page of audio excerpts from two speeches of Marcus Garvey as well as an image gallery. Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) form a critical link in black America's centuries-long struggle for justice and equality. This is one of the few sites that bring together documentary information, new research, and bibliography about the nationalist leader.
University of Iowa, Women's Archives,Selected Collections Related to African American Women sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/iwa/findingaids/html/AAhold.htm
This webpage lists over 75 collections. Twenty of those collections have in depth finding aids that are not searchable. Generally speaking, the Iowa Women's Archives homepage is a well-organized website that is very engaging and colorful.
University of Kentucky, Daily Aesthetic: Leisure and Recreation in a Southern City's Segregated Park System www.uky.edu/Projects/TDA/
Boyd Landerson Shearer Jr. explores African American urban history and experience in Kentucky's largest cities by focusing on the parks and recreational spaces of African American communities prior to legal integration of public facilities in 1956. This website includes 178 images of parks in Lexington, Kentucky.
University of Maryland, Freedmen and Southern Society Project
www.inform.umd.edu/HIST/Freedman/
This project was established in 1976 to "capture the essence of that revolution by depicting the drama of emancipation in the words of the participants." Freedman is a collection of html encoded documents from the National Archives of the United States. Many of the encoded documents are accompanied by an image. The project's editors present portions of text from the nine volume set entitled: Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867.
University of Missouri St. Louis, African Missouri www.umsl.edu/~libweb/blackstudies/afmoindx.htm
This webpage supplies links to information, articles, and narratives about the state's history taken from numerous sources. These sources include: The Official Manual of the State of Missouri, Preservation Issues by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, The African American Heritage of St. Louis by the St. Louis Public Library, the Black Studies Gopher of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and narratives provided by the Western Historical Manuscript Collections and University Archives (University of Missouri System). One can also gain access to a list of African-Americans who were lynched in Missouri as well as genealogy resources.
University of Missouri / State Historical Society of Missouri www.system.missouri.edu/whmc/african.htm
This webpage provides the remote user with a listing a over 100 collections of material by or about African-Americans. It includes manuscripts, records of black organizations and churches, collections with significant information about, Civil Rights, slavery, and African-American daily life in Missouri. It is quite easy to search the manuscript collection, and one can also gain access to the manuscripts of the three other branches of Missouri University: St. Louis, Kansas City, and Rolla.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Church in the Southern Black Community, Beginnings to 1920 metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/church/index.html
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has produced one of the finest digital collections on the WWW today. This collection contains over 19,000 pages from approximately 100 works, including autobiographies, sermons, church reports, religious periodicals, and denominational histories, tracing the experience of Southern African Americans and the transformation of Protestant Christianity into the central institution of black community life.
University of North Carolina at Chapel HIll, North American Slave Narratives Beginnings to 1920 metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/neh/nehmain.html
This digital collection documents the individual and collective story of the African-American struggle for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The North American Slave Narratives is one division of the Collection of Electronic texts which is a part of the Documenting the A merican South Project at UNC. This division includes 29 texts of some of the most famous narrators such as Frederick Douglass, Nat Turner, and Booker T. Washington.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Mostly Menfolk and a Women or Two: A Virtual Exhibit of 18th and 19th Century African American Literature www.metalab.unc.edu/afam_authors/homepage.html
This collection of digital texts, excerpts, and audio files, spotlights some of the fascinating early African-American writers whose work is collected in the University of North Carolina libraries. It also includes digital documents created by other institutions.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Remembering Slavery www.uncg.edu/~jpbrewer/remember/
This site provides oral histories and brief audio clips of ex-slaves retelling their experiences during slavery and reconstruction. The ability to hear not only the words, but also the emotions of these individuals is unique and rewarding. The audio clips rely on the user software (RealAudio), and can take a long time to download.
University of North Texas, School of Library and Information Science (No URL Available)
This library school is working in conjunction with The African American Museum in Dallas to create an database that will consist of images from their African-American folk art collection of paintings, sculptures, and household objects. The bulk of photography archives comes from the photographic collections of Sepia Magazine (1945-1983), a major serial that had documented African-American life and culture for over three decades.
University of Pennsylvania, Marian Anderson: A Life in Song www.library.upenn.edu/special/gallery/anderson/index.html
celebrates the artistic development and musical career of Marian Anderson. The exhibition format includes not only manuscripts and photographs but also audio and video clips from interviews and performances.
University of Pennsylvania, Marian Anderson Collection of Photographs (1898-1992) www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/anderson/
This collection contains over 4,500 photographs of Marian Anderson, her friends, colleagues, and admirers. Users can conduct searches as well as view documents in the browse mode. A register of the Marian Anderson papers is also available online.
University of Southern Mississippi, Freedom Summer Letters and Posters www.lib.usm.edu/~archives/m323.htm
University of Southern Mississippi Libraries' Special Collections Digital Program announces the online release of
correspondence and civil rights posters from the Joseph and Nancy Ellin Freedom Summer Collection. The Ellins,
ivy-league educated teachers from New York City, came to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1964 to work in the
Freedom Schools established as a part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.The Ellin digital collection is a
phase of the Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive, which provides oral histories, manuscripts, and images
documenting the history of race relations in Mississippi.
University of Southern Mississippi and Tougaloo College, Civil Rights Oral History Bibliography
www-dept.usm.edu/~mcrohb/
This website is the aggregation of oral histories from a variety of archives primarily in Mississippi and throughout the south. They were collected by the University of Southern Mississippi Center for Oral History and the Tougaloo College Archives. This site is not sophisticated, but it is partially searchable and could be a valuable resource for researchers.
University of Virginia, Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record http://gropius.lib.virginia.edu/slavery/
This project of The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and The Digital Media Lab at the University of Virginia Library This collection is envisioned as a tool and a resource that can be used by teachers, researchers, students, and the general public. In brief, anyone interested in the experiences of Africans who were enslaved and transported to the Americas and the lives of their descendants in the slave societies of the New World. The hundreds of images in this collection have been selected from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery.
University of Virginia, American Slave Narratives An Online Anthology, Index of Narratives xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html
This website includes samples of 13 slave narratives with photographs and sketches collected by writers and journalists between 1930s and 1950 who were employed by the Works Progress Administration. One narrative contains links to audio files [Real Audio] from the recorded interview.
University of Virginia, Harlem Mecca of the New Negro: A Hypermedia New Edition of the March 1925 etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/index.htmlSurvey Graphic Harlem Number.
This website promotes a digitization effort from the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia. This website features an electronic version of: Survey Graphic the monthly illustrated number of Survey Magazine, the premier journal of social work in America in the 1920s. This was the first of several attempts to formulate a political and cultural representation of the New Negro and the Harlem community. The movement later became known as the Harlem Renaissance.
University of Virginia, Jackson Davis Collection of African American Educational Photographs www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/jdavis/
The Jackson Davis Collection consists of a main body of papers consists of contains approximately 6
linear feet of Davis's personal, professional, and financial files, as well as topical files, spanning the years
1906 through 1947. The collection also includes 4502 photographic negatives, 249 glass lantern slides and
759 photographic prints. The image database based on this collection consists of 4,500 photographs of African-American educational scenes in the southern United States taken by Davis from 1915 ot 1930.
University of Virginia, Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/sitemap.html
is a full-text searchable multimedia archive of texts, images, songs, 3-D objects, and video clips on a wide variety of issues and themes that are associated with Harriet Beecher Stowe's text Uncle Tom's Cabin. All information is accessible in the interpretive, browse, and search modes.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent [RealPlayer] africafocus.library.wisc.edu/
The goal of the joint project of the African Studies Program and the Library system at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is to present a well rounded view of African life via 3,000 slides, 500 photographs, 50 hours of sound recording from 45 African nations. One may browse by collection, subject or country. This is and excellent resource for anyone interest in African history.
Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Black History Archives www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/vbha/vbhanew.html
This collection of Oral History Transcripts. The Church Hill Oral History Collection contains interviews with 35 individuals, all of whom were then current or former residents of Richmond's Church Hill neighborhood. The African American Richmond: Educational Segregation and Desegregation oral histories consist of 14 transcripts of interviews about education with individuals from the Richmond area.
Washington University, Dred Scott Case www.library.wustl.edu/vlib/dredscott/
Washington University Libraries has worked with the St. Louis Circuit Court and the Missouri State Archives to put 170 pages of the original Dred Scott documents on the Libraries' web site at The project makes available to scholars and the public the records for the several cases concerning Dred and Harriet Scott that were tried in St. Louis courts between 1846 and 1852. These documents are part of a massive collection of Civil Court records dating from 1798 through the present. The collection is an incredibly rich resource for historical research.
Wright State University, Paul Laurence Dunbar - Digital Text Collection www.libraries.wright.edu/dunbar/
is a Tribute to Dayton poet and novelist, P. L. Dunbar This collection provides access to over two hundred poems published at the turn of the century. In addition, there is an edition of one of his librettos and audio versions of a number of poems.

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Government
National Archives and Records Administration, Beyond the Playing Field: Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate www.nara.gov/education/teaching/robinson/robmain.html
This online exhibition of manuscripts and photographs that trace Robinson's career as a civil rights leader. There are 9 documents and 3 lesson plans available that highlight Jackie Robinson's legacy.
National Archives and Records Administration, Fight for Civil Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War www.nara.gov/education/teaching/usct/home.html
Teaching activities, historical documents, and photographs explore the issues of emancipation and military service including 13 pages of documents and 1 teaching activity.
National Archives and Records Administration, Amistad Case www.nara.gov/education/teaching/amistad/home.html
Documents related to the circuit court and Supreme Court cases involving the Amistad Slave Revolt Case. It includes over 19 pages from 5 primary documents about the Amistad Slave Revolt Case. In addition, teaching activities are included to assist teachers and school age students in using primary documents on the WWW.
National Parks Service, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/
is a collection of photographs and documentation on the 41 properties throughout 20 states and the District of Columbia that have been nominated by the states and listed in the National Register Of Historic Places.
National Parks Service, Aboard the Underground Railroad www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/
According to the website, Aboard the Underground Railroad "introduces travelers, researchers, historians, preservationists, and anyone interested in African American history to the fascinating people and places associated with the Underground Railroad." The website provides descriptions and photographs of 46 historic places that are listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places, America's official list of places important in our history and worthy of preservation. It also includes maps of the most common Underground Railroad escape routes and state maps marking the location of the historic properties.
National Parks Service, American Visionary: Legends of Tuskegee www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/tuskegee/index.htm
This three-part web exhibit highlights the achievements of Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver
and the Tuskegee Airmen. It features collections at Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site and Tuskegee Airmen
National Historic Site located in Tuskegee, Alabama, and selected items from the Booker T. Washington National
Monument in Hardy, Virginia, and George Washington Carver National Monument in Diamond, Missouri. The
exhibit also features collections from the Library of Congress, National Digital Library; National Archives and
Records Administration; and the Department of Defense.
National Parks Service, American Visionary: Frederick Douglass www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/douglass/index.htm
This online exhibition features items owned by Frederick Douglass and highlights his achievements. The items are
in the museum and archival collections at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site at Cedar Hill, Southeast
Washington, DC. For high resolution images and books about Frederick Douglass, visit the Parks and History
Association Web site.
Library of Congress, African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aohome.html
This Special Presentation of the Library of Congress exhibition, The African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full
Citizenship, showcases the Library's incomparable African-American collections. The presentation was not only a
highlight of what is on view in this major black history exhibition, but also a glimpse into the Library's vast
African-American collections. Both include a wide array of important and rare books, government documents,
manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.
Library of Congress, African American Perspectives - Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection 1880-1907 lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aaphome.html
There are 351 titles in the collection including sermons on racial pride and political activism; annual reports of charitable, educational, and political organizations; and college catalogs and graduation orations. Also included are biographies, slave narratives, speeches by members of Congress, legal documents, poetry, playbills, dramas, and librettos. Several of the pamphlets are illustrated with portraits of the authors.
Library of Congress, African American Mosaic lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/african/intro.html
This exhibit marks the publication of "The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture." Covering the nearly 500 years of the black experience in the western hemisphere, Mosaic surveys the full range size, and variety of the Library's collections, including books, periodicals, prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound. Approximately 124 images
Library of Congress, Born in Slavery: Ex-Slave Narratives of the Federal Writers' Project http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/
First-hand recollections of slavery by thousands of former slaves were recorded in the 1930s by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. This collection from the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs Divisions includes texts of more than 2000 narratives and 500 photographs.
Library of Congress, Creative Americans, Portraits by Carl Van Vechten memory.loc.gov/ammem/vvhtml/vvhome.html
This collection consists of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964. The bulk of the collection consists of portrait photographs of celebrities, including many figures from the Harlem Renaissance. A much smaller portion of the collection is an assortment of American landscapes.
Library of Congress, Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress memory.loc.gov/ammem/doughtml/doughome.html
The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The first release of the Douglass Papers, from the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division, contains approximately 2,000 items (16,000 images) relating to Douglass's life as an escaped slave, abolitionist, editor, orator, and public servant. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895. The printed Speech, Article, and Book Series 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. The Subject File Series reveals Douglass's interest in diverse subjects such as politics, emancipation, racial prejudice, women's suffrage, and prison reform.
Library of Congress, From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909
lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aapchtml/aapchome.html
This collection presents 397 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, published from 1824 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics. The materials range from personal accounts and public orations to organizational reports and legislative speeches. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington.
Library of Congress, Jackie Robinson memory.loc.gov/ammem/jrhtml/jrabout.html
This collection of diverse original materials on Jackie Robinson, the baseball color line, and the Negro Leagues that can be found throughout the Library's reading rooms. Library staff selected and reproduced approximately 30 interesting items created between the 1860s and the 1960s, including manuscripts, photographs, ephemera, and books.
Library of Congress, Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860
memory.loc.gov/ammem/sthtml/sthome.html
The exhibition contains just over 100 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. The documents, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance. Of the cases presented here, most took place in America and a few in Great Britain. Among the voices heard are those of some of the defendants and plaintiffs themselves as well as those of abolitionists, presidents, politicians, slave owners, fugitive and free territory slaves, lawyers and judges, and justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Significant names include John Quincy Adams, Roger B. Taney, John C. Calhoun, Salmon P. Chase, Dred Scott, William H. Seward, Prudence Crandall, Theodore Parker, Jonathan Walker, Daniel Drayton, Castner Hanway, Francis Scott Key, William L. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Denmark Vesey, and John Brown.

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Commercial
Accessible Archives Inc., African American Newspapers: The 19^th Century www.accessible.com/about/african.htm
This full-text database of African American Newspapers contains a wealth of information about the cultural life and history of African Americans during the 1800s. It is rich with first-hand reports of the major events and issues of the day, including the Mexican War, presidential and congressional addresses, congressional abstracts, business and commodity markets, the humanities, world travel and religion. They also contain large numbers of early biographies, vital statistics, essays and editorials, poetry and prose, and advertisements, all of which embody the African-American experience. This resource is not free. Only subcribers may search the following newspapers:
- Freedom's Journal; March 16, 1827 - March 28 1829.
- Colored American (Weekly Advocate), New York, New York; January 7, 1837 - December 25, 1841.
- Frederick Douglass Paper, 1851-1859, Rochester, New York; completed through December 1852.
- North Star, Rochester, New York; December 3, 1847 - April 17, 1851.
- National Era, Washington, DC; January 7, 1847 - March 12, 1860; completed through December 1853.
- Christian Recorder (1861 - 1902) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; completed through April 1862. Published by the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, for the Dissemination of Religion, Morality, Literature and Science.
- Provincial Freeman, Chatham, Canada West; 1854-1857.
Cambridge University Press, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM www.cup.org/eltis.html
"Considered to be the most comprehensive computerized record of the trans-Atlantic slave trade...will challenge traditional perception about the inaccessibility of information on slave roots." It documents the forced migration of an estimated 12 million Africans from 1519-1867. It is a data set compiled by respected historians and draws on the archival work of international scholars.
Chadwyck-Healey, Database of African American Poetry, 1760-1900 etext.lib.virginia.edu/aapd.html
This Chadwyck-Healey commercial database is a collection of over 2,500 poems, based on William French's bibliography, Afro-American Poetry and Drama 1760-1975.
Greenwood Publishing Group, American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography www.slavenarratives.com
This commercial database of hundreds of narratives, links, forums, and discussions is not free to all. Portable Document Files (pdf) are downloadable if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader software. The creators of the collection state that American Slavery is the "authoritative collection of WPA slave narratives on the Web."
Harpweek, Black History www.blackhistory.harpweek.com
Harpweek is a privately funded project to digitize the entire contents of the 19th century, illustrated periodical Harper's Weekly. Black History at Harpweek is one of a series of free resources. This full database explores various themes featuring a timeline of slavery, the civil War, Reconstruction, and the Harpers Ferry Raid . There is a wealth of information, especially for one interested in the images of African Americans during that era.
Mississippi State University, AfriGeneas www.afrigeneas.com/
Mississippi State University hosts this website which primarily serves as a focal point for information about African American genealogy. It initially started as a mailing lists and later became a discussion group and general resource for genealogists.
National Geographic Society, Underground Railroad www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/
This interactive site pulls together a number of images that were digitized from a variety of archives. The design, graphics and images are outstanding and well geared to the K-12 audience. Links to other Underground Railroad webpages are listed as well as links to other National Geographic Society webpages.
Sporting News, "Soul of the Game" www.sportingnews.com/features/jackie/
This webpage includes 23 photographs of Jackie Robinson and dozens of questionnaires about Jackie Robinson that were distributed to major league players in the 1940s and 1950s. These images and documents are a nice supplement to the tribute to Jackie Robinson by the writing staff of The Sporting News.
University of Illinois Press, Booker T. Washington Papers www.historycooperative.org/btw/
"The Booker T. Washington Papers Online is a 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. In addition to easy navigation and searching across the multiple volumes, the Web site will allow page-by-page local printing via Adobe Acrobat Reader."
WebArcheology.com, Levi Jordan Plantation www.webarchaeology.com/Html/index.html
This website has an extremely narrow focus. The mission of the Levi Jordan Plantation Historical society is to preserve and interpret the archaeology and history of all the people who lived and worked on the plantation since 1848. Another purpose of this site is to help community members learn more about how people on the Internet communicate about archaeology and history.
Webcorp, Historic Audio Archives: Voices of the Civil Rights Era www.webcorp.com/civilrights/index.htm
This website contains over 25 audio recordings of a variety of speeches by public figures such as Spiro Agnew. One section, Voices from the Civil Rights era, includes famous speeches such as "A Lonely Island of Poverty," by Martin Luther King Jr. and "A parable -- House and Field Negroes" by Malcolm X.

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Museums
DuSable Museum of African-American History www.dusablemuseum.org/
This is the only major independent institution in Chicago established to preserve and interpret the historical experiences and achievements of African Americans. This website is not very creative or interesting, but the museum is a wonderful place to visit.
Kendall Whaling Museum, Heroes in the Ships - African Americans in the Whaling Industry www.kwm.org/collections/exhibits/heroes/home.htm
is part of the Kendall Whaling Museum Online exhibition of the history of African Americans in the Whaling Industry beginning in 1840. The collection of black and white images is accompanied by a limited amount of background as well as an user friendly interface.
Museum of Afro American History Boston www.afroammuseum.org/
This website advertises the exhibitions of the museum whose purpose is threefold: collect and exhibit artifacts, educate the public, and celebrate the enduring vitality of African-American culture. This site is organized well but it does not include much background information about the images posted.
National Civil Rights Museum www.midsouth.rr.com/civilrights/
The founders of the museum established this website to put forth the museum's mission to education and preserve the memory of the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The creators of the home page do a good job of advertising the first and only comprehensive overview of the civil rights movement in exhibit form.
Smithsonian, Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History Culture www.si.edu/anacostia/anacexh.htm
This website is one of 16 museums which make up the Smithsonian Institute. There are a number of online exhibitions about the black church, Juneteenth, and Kwanzaa, but they are not very engaging. Other than the few exhibitions, this site is not very informative. The creators of the site make it clear to the user that the museum is community-based and constituency-focused. This seems to be one of the few museums that can make such a claim.

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Public Libraries
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Public Library, African American Album - Vol I www.cmstory.org/african/album/volume1/default.htm
Volume I is the first part of the online exhibition of over 10 photographs and 5 audio clips that document African American life in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County from the late 19th century up until the 1940s. The making of this online exhibition is documented in Sharon Johnston's article in American Libraries, "An African-American Album: Preserving Local History on CD-ROM," March 1999.
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Public Library, African American Album - Vol II www.cmstory.org/aaa2/default.htm
Volume II is the second part of the online exhibition of over 45 photographs and 20 audio clips that document African American life in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County from the 1940s up to the present.
Kansas City Public Library, Historical African American Autographs www.kcpl.lib.mo.us/sc/exhibits/autographs/splash.htm
This exhibit includes twenty-eight autographs of famous African Americans such as W. E. B. DuBois and Mary McCleod Bethune.
New Orleans Public Library, African Americans in New Orleans The Music www.nutrias.org/~nopl/exhibits/black97.htm
This exhibit draws from materials in the New Orleans City Archives, the Louisiana Photograph Collection, and the Louisiana Division's book and periodical collections. It only begins to explore the brilliant and complex fabric of African-American music in New Orleans.
New Orleans Public Library, African Americans in New Orleans: Les Gens de Couleur Libres www.nutrias.org/~nopl/exhibits/fmc/fmc.htm
This exhibit is designed to provide first-hand examples of the role that free people of color played in antebellum New Orleans. It uses original documents from the City Archives along with materials from other Louisiana Division collections.
New Orleans Public Library, African Americans in New Orleans: Family History Sources www.nutrias.org/~nopl/exhibits/bhm98/black98.htm
This exhibit displays some of the sources available in the Louisiana Division and in the City Archives for genealogical research into African-American ancestry.
New York Public Library, Schomburg Research Center of Black Culture, African American Women Writers from the 19th Century /digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/
This digital collection highlights some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers owned by the Schomburg Research Center of Black Culture in Harlem. The searchable collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.
New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Black New York digital.nypl.org/wpa.html
New York Public Library's Digital Schomburg is in the process of digitizing a collection of manuscripts
documenting the history of african Americans in New York City from the arrival of the first 11 in New Amsterdam
in 1626.
New York Public Library, Images of African Americans from the 19th Century digital.nypl.org/schomburg/images_aa19/
This pictorial database contains over 500 illustrations and photographs that document the life and history of peoples of African descent worldwide.

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Misc.
African American Heritage Preservation Foundation Inc. www.aahpf.org
The AAHPF, a not for profit organization, that is dedicated to the preservation of African American history and
historical sites was established in June 1994 by E. Renee Ingram. The Foundation was created as a result of Ms.
Ingram’s efforts to preserve her family’s cemetery, an endangered rural cemetery, which ultimately was placed
on the Commonwealth of Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
Internet Public Library, Genesis www.ipl.org/exhibit/euphrates/GenesisCover.html
This is an interesting Photographic Essay of the Black Community in Kansas City Missouri from 1885. It was created by the cultural heritage institution Euphrates Incorporated and is hosted by the Internet Public Library.
University of Arkansas, Persistence of the Spirit - The African American Experience in Arkansas www.aristotle.net/persistence/index.html
This exhibition of an interpretive study of the people and events that contributed to the black experience in Arkansas. Developed in 1986-87 by a team of humanities scholars supported by grants.
University of Michigan, Harlem 1900-1940: An African American Community www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/
is a multimedia collection designed for the K-12 audience. It consists of approximately 300 lesson plans, images, and texts that have been collected by the Educational Programs unit of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Within this collection is a database devoted to the writers, artists, and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance. It also includes tools and resources for teachers such as bibliographies and instructional objectives.

©Elaine L. Westbrooks