Major Research Tools

Accessible Archives: African American Newspapers

Full-Text
Coverage: 1827-1855

Full text of African American newspapers from the 19th century.


African American Communities

Full-Text

Primary source material on race relations across social, political, cultural and religious arenas from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Focuses primarily on New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and North Carolina.


African American Newspapers, Series 1 & 2

Full-Text
Coverage: 1827-1998
Collection of digitized newspapers written by and for African-Americans from more than 35 states.

African Newspapers, Series 1 & 2, 1800-1925

Full-Text

Collection of digitized newspapers from 21 countries across Africa during the years 1800-1925, covering "repercussions of the Atlantic slave trade, life under colonial rule and the results of the Berlin Conference to the emergence of Black journalism, the Zulu Wars and the rejection of Western imperialism." Mostly in English, but other languages include Afrikaans, French, German, Malagasy, Portuguese, Sotho, Tswana, Xhosa, and Zulu.


Dictionary of African Biography

Full-Text, Reference

Biographical information on the men and women who shaped Africa's history from earliest times to the present.


Ebony Magazine Archive

Full-Text
1945-2014

Digitized full-text archive of Ebony, the seminal magazine with an African-American focus on culture, politics, civil rights, business, education, and fashion. Includes the iconic cover pages and advertisements in addition to full text articles.


Encyclopedia of Africa

Full-Text, Reference

Encyclopedia covering the history, politics, and culture of African countries.


Jet Magazine Archive

Full-Text
Coverage: 1951-2014

Digitized archive of Jet, a weekly magazine covering art, news, politics and other social topics with an African-American focus.


Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought

Full-Text, Reference

Encyclopedia on the intellectual tradition of Africa and the African diaspora. Covers trends in African philosophy, political theory, and religion, as well as significant historical figures and social movements.


Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World: Digital Collection

Full-Text

"Comparative and systematic analyses of Islamic beliefs, institutions, movements, practices, and peoples on an international scale."


Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History

Full-Text

In depth articles on major topics and trends relating to the study of African history. Written (and periodically updated) by scholars and peer-reviewed.


Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive

Full-Text
Coverage: 17th C. - late 19th C.

Major collection of primary source material covering the global history of the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery movements. Presented in 4 collections: Debates over Slavery and Abolition; Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; The Institution of Slavery; and Age of Emancipation.


Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice

Full-Text
Coverage: 1490-2007

Vast collection of documents relating to the global slave trade and subsequent abolition efforts and social justice movements. Documents include manuscripts, court records, maps, lists of slaves and ships' logs, books, statistics, and many types of images.


Other Suggested Research Tools

African American Perspectives

Full-Text

Collection of materials relating to African American history and culture from the Library of Congress's rare book collection. The bulk of the materials were published between 1822 and 1909 and include public orations, organization records, personal narratives, legal documents, and literary works. Topics covered include segregation, voting rights, violence against African Americans, and the colonization movement.


African American Women Writers of the 19th Century

Full-Text

A collection of works providing “access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.” A project from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Digital Schomburg of the New York Public Library.


African Online Digital Library

Gateway

"Cultural heritage materials from and about African countries and communities. Includes tens of thousands of digitized photographs, videos, archival documents, maps, interviews and oral histories in numerous African languages."


Al-Ahram

Coverage: 1875-2018

Archive of Al-Ahram ("the Pyramids"), the major daily Arabic language newspaper published in Egypt.


Apartheid South Africa 1948-1980

Full-Text
British government files covering the inception and implementation of apartheid by Daniel Malan, the strengthening of policies by Hendrik Verwoerd and the eventual destabilisation of the system under P. W. Botha.

Black Abolitionist Archive

Full-Text

Collection of abolitionist speeches by antebellum blacks and editorials from the period.


BlackPast.org: Remembered and Reclaimed

Full-Text, Gateway

Collection of primary and secondary sources on African American history plus links to digital archives and other African American history sites.


Caribbean History and Culture, 1535-1920

Full-Text

Digital collection of over 1,200 books, pamphlets, almanacs, broadsides and ephemera covering the history of the Caribbean Islands. Can be searched or browsed by subject, genre, place of publication, language, etc.


Civil Rights Digital Library

Gateway

Gateway to primary sources on the civil rights movement in the U.S., including films, oral histories, government documents, and editorial cartoons.


Civil Rights Documentation Project Oral History Transcripts

Full-Text

Collection of oral histories documenting the civil rights movement from the Tougaloo College Archives in Mississippi. Transcripts include biographical information and tables of contents.


Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966

Full-Text
Collection of the most important papers generated by the British Foreign and Colonial Offices relating to Africa. Covers the whole modern period of European colonization of the continent from the British Government’s perspective.

Digital National Security Archive

Full-Text

Collections of declassified documents covering US policy decisions around nuclear escalation and non-proliferation, the space race and military uses of space, and the Cuban missile crisis. Also includes collections of documents covering US foreign policy in relation to: Argentina; China; Colombia; Cuba; Mexico; South Africa; and North and South Korea.


Digital Schomburg

Full-Text, Gateway, Visual Resource

Digital Schomburg from the New York Public Library provides access to online exhibitions, 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.


Diversity & Tolerance in the Islam of West Africa

Full-Text, Visual Resource

This digital library contains archival and research materials such as audio and video interviews, transcripts, photographs, maps, and documents that explore Islamic practices in the West African countries of Senegal and Ghana.


East African Newspapers

Full-Text
Coverage: 1943-2003

Collection of 3 English-language newspapers covering post-colonial and contemporary events in the region, with more titles to be added. As of July 2021 titles are: Daily Nation (Kenya), The Ethiopian Herald, and The Monitor (Uganda).


Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress

Full-Text

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.


Humanities and Social Sciences Index Retrospective

Index

Coverage: 1907-1984

Index of major journals in the humanities and social sciences.


Independent Voices

Full-Text

Open Access collection of over 1,000 alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals from the 1960s-80s focused on the following series: Feminism; LGBTQ; Ethnicity and Race; Campus/community; GI Press; Small literary magazines; Right-wing press.


Middle Eastern & North African Newspapers

Full-Text
1902-1972

Growing collection of 15 titles, mainly in Arabic but some English and/or French as well. When complete will cover "the decline of colonialism, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Suez Crisis, the Cold War, the rise of the petroleum industry, twentieth-century pan-Arab movements, both World Wars, the establishment of the state of Israel, the Iran-Iraq War, and the recent Arab Spring."


Race Relations in America

Full-Text
Coverage: 1943-1970

Speeches (audio and transcripts), reports, photos, surveys, and other digitized material from the archival collection of the Race Relations Department of the American Missionary Association, whose members included Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many other Civil Rights pioneers.


Slave Voyages

Data, Visual Resource

Detailed data on slaving voyages from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and the Intra-American Slave Trade Database. Also includes the African Names Database, which provides details of Africans taken from captured slave ships or from African trading sites, and a database of images relating to the slave trade.