NEIU Libraries Research Guides: African and African American Studies Research Guide: Primary Sources for African American Studies

Primary Sources for African American Studies

Black Metropolis Research Consortium
This website represents the culmination of two years of archival surveying of African American primary-source research materials in locations throughout the Chicago region, including the Bronzeville Historical Society, Chicago Defender, Chicago History Museum, DePaul, the Newberry, Northwestern, and University of Chicago.
Online Exhibitions at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Digital Schomburg’s online exhibitions, using images, full-length books and articles, manuscripts, maps, and essays by renowned scholars present an in-depth look into specific themes including the abolition of the slave trade, African American migration, Malcom X, and Harlem (1900-1940).
African American History Month Exhibitions and Collections
This portal includes collections related to art and design, Civil Rights, culture & folklore, music & performing arts, slavery, and links to other resource guides.
Africana Age: African & African Diasporan Transformations in the 20th Century
Features collections of images and essays related to World War I, Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, and the Harlem Renaissance.
Civil Rights History Project
Published by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, this collection consists of over 100 oral history interviews with activists who participated in the struggle for African American Civil Rights, and their recollections cover a wide variety of topics within the civil rights movement, such as the influence of the labor movement, nonviolence and self-defense, religious faith, music, and the experiences of young activists.
Civil Rights Digital Library
The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale. Features a collection of unedited news film from television archives held at the University of Georgia Libraries.
Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South
A selection of 410 recorded oral history interviews chronicling African-American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s.
Digital Harlem: Everyday Life 1915-1930
Digital Harlem website presents information, drawn from legal records, newspapers and other archival and published sources, about everyday life in New York City's Harlem neighborhood in the years 1915-1930.
Anti-Slavery Collection from UMass-Amherst
The Antislavery Collection contains several hundred printed pamphlets and books pertaining to slavery and antislavery in New England, 1725-1911. The holdings include speeches, sermons, proceedings and other publications of organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society and the American Colonization Society, and a small number of pro-slavery tracts.
Civil War in Art: Teaching and Learning through Chicago Collections
This project aims to provide a more complete understanding of the complex nexus of issues, events, and people that contributed to the causes and effects of the Civil War. Includes teaching resources and an image gallery.

Historical African American Newspapers and Periodicals

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
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Provide access to U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience, including many rare and historically significant 19th century titles.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
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Search more than 170 African American Periodicals published between 1825 and 1995

Videos for AFAM

Streaming Videos

Black Studies in Video This link opens in a new window
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This collection features award-winning documentaries, newsreels, interviews and archival footage surveying the evolution of black culture in the United States, many from producers California Newsreel and Filmmakers Library. At present, the collection includes 145 videos, totaling 141 hours, going back to 1969. Many of the videos also have transcriptions.