American Studies

Publications from the Black Power movement, the Black Arts Movement, Black Nationalism, Separatism, and Black Feminism. Includes writings and thoughts of those who led and participated in these diverse movements.

Interviews of 72 African American women, many with careers in fields such as education, government, the arts, business, medicine, law, and social work. Includes interview with Rosa Parks. Dates: 1976-1981. For more background on interviewees: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of formerly enslaved people. Conducted by Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration. Dates: 1936-1938.

Photographs, videos, oral histories, and more related to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 60's. Browse by event, people, or collections.

Search names and lives of enslaved and free[d] individuals through discovery hub of various databases and digital projects.

History and heritage of African Americans in North Carolina from the colonial era to the present day. Includes historic places, biographies, cultural movements, and more.

Includes diaries, speeches, letters, newspapers, memorabilia. Dates: 1841-1964, most from 1862-1895.

In the 1930s the federal government created redlining maps for almost every major American city. Mapping Inequality lets you explore these maps and the history of racial and ethnic discrimination in housing policy.

Digital Public Library of America primary source sets filtered by subject: African Americans. Topics include: migration, literature, arts, anti-lynching, laws and more.

Legislative petitions, county court petitions, wills, inventories, deeds, bills of sale, depositions, court proceedings, amended petitions, and other documents containing information on roughly 80,000 enslaved people, 8,000 free people of color, and 62,000 whites, both slave owners and non-slave owners. Recommended to search by subject.

Includes writings, notes, letters, photographs, and more. Dates: 1866-2006, most 1955-2000.

Photographs, drawings, and writings containing information by and about people of African descent throughout the world, concentrating on the humanities, social sciences, and the arts.

Hub of primary sources, biographies, and criticism of literary genre slave narratives. "American slave narratives are autobiographical accounts by Black Americans describing their experiences in slavery and often their flight from servitude in the South to freedom in the North."

The SlaveVoyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was the only national civil rights organization led by young people. Search by people, timeline, or stories.

1872 history of the Underground Railroad (UGRR) by William Still, clerk of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Subtitled: A record of facts, authentic narratives, letters &c., narrating the hardships, hair-breadth escapes and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom. See also: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27284314