African American Primary Resource Databases
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Proquest Black Studies This link opens in a new windowScholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books. Includes The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, Index to Black Periodicals Full Text, Black Literature Index, and the Chicago Defender historical newspaper.
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African American Communities This link opens in a new windowPamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports, and in-depth oral histories reveal the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity. Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina.
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Archives Unbound This link opens in a new windowIncludes papers from 20th century individual and organizations involved in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. Also includes City Directories from the Southeast and much more.
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Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Collection of non-fiction writings of leading African-Americans. Includes interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamplets, letters and other fugitive material.
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Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowNewspapers, books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs. Simultaneously search: 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, Sunday Times (London), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Making of the Modern World, Times Literary Supplement, and Times Digital Archive, Financial Times (London).
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HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowOral history interviews with both well-known and unsung African American artists, business leaders, scientists, athletes, and intellectuals.
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History Vault This link opens in a new windowIncludes collections on 20th Century Black Freedom Struggle, Slavery and the Law, and much more.
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Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new windowIncludes nearly all issues of the Black Panther Party newspaper and other primary sources materials.
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Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice This link opens in a new windowPrimary source documents on key aspects of the history of slavery. The African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. Case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
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Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database This link opens in a new windowRecords from slaving expeditions from archives and libraries throughout the Atlantic world. Information about vessels, enslaved peoples, slave traders and owners, and trading routes. Statistical tables, graphs, maps, and timelines.
What are Special Collections?
Collections of unusual or scarce materials such as rare books, manuscripts, historical maps, drawings, paintings, photographs, etc., as well as the institution's own archives (alumni papers, professors' papers, university records) housed in a climate controlled secured area.
Notable African American History Archives
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African American History @ Stuart A. Rose ArchviesRobust primary resource materials covering six principle collecting areas--Civil Rights and Post-Civil Rights Movements, Black print Culture, Blacks and the Left, African American Literature and the Arts, Expatriate Literary and Cultural Figures, and African Americans and Sports. Located at Emory University.
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Amistad Research CenterCollects, preserves, and provides access to original materials that reference the social and cultural importance of America's ethnic and racial history, the African Diaspora, human relations, and civil rights. Located at Tulane University.
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Atlanta University Center ArchivesIncludes the archives of Clark Atlanta University, Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College and Spelman College. Also has many individual, familial, and organizational collections representing the breadth of African American experiences.
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Avery Research Center for African American History and CultureHolds nearly 4000 primary and secondary source materials which perserve the history and culture of African Americans in Charleston, the South Carolina LowCountry, and South Carolina at large. Located at the College of Charleston.
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Black Archives of Mid-AmericaCollects and preserves historical materials and artifacts related to the African American experience in the Midwest with an emphasis on Kansas City, MO region. Located in the historic 18th and Vine District in Kansas City, MO.
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The Black Film Center/ ArchiveCollects and preserves films and related materials which have substantial participation by African Americans as writers, actors, producers, directors, musicians, and consultants as well as those which depict some aspect of the black experience. Located at Indiana University-Bloomington.
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Fisk University Special Collections and ArchivesOver 130 primary resource collections of African American scholars, poets, writers, artists, and businessmen. Located in Nashville, TN.
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Henry Hampton Collection @ the Film and Media ArchiveMost notably known for his Eyes on the Prize documentary series chronicling the Civil Rights Movement. Henry Hampton's filmic legacy--over 58,000 items-- as well as organizational records for the historic Blackside Inc, production company are perserved here. Located at Washington University.
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Moorland-Spingarn Research CenterOne of the oldest African American archives in the country. Includes the Howard University Archive. Located in Washington, D.C.
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Schomburg Center for Research in Black CultureOne of the world's leading research facilities devoted to the preservation of materials on the global African and African diasporan experiences. Contains over 11 million items in its non circulating collections. Located in New York City, NY.
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Tuskegee University Archives RepositoryNotable HBCU founded by Booker T. Washington. Collection includes books (including faculty publications), manuscripts, Tuskegee University periodicals and newspapers, ephemera, photographic images, disc and tape recordings, and other archival items. Located in Tuskegee, AL.
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Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection @ Chicago Public Library.Largest African American history and literature collection in the Midwest with a strong focus on the black experience in Chicago. Contains photographs, manuscripts, rare books, and organizational records. Located in Chicago, IL.
