Research Guides: African American History: Primary Sources

General Databases

Black Authors, 1556-1922
Offers more than 550 fully catalogued and searchable works by black authors from the Americas, Europe and Africa, expertly compiled by the curators of Afro-Americana Imprints collection.
Black Thought and Culture
Non-fiction writings by major American black leaders, teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures, covering 250 years of history.
History Vault: Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 1
Records from civil rights organizations including SNCC, SCLC, NAACP & more

African American Newspapers, Series 1 & 2, 1827-1998
African American history, culture, & daily life
African American Newspapers: The 19th Century
Complete texts of African American newspapers from the 1800s
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
Wide range of publications by & about African Americans

American Slavery Collection, 1820-1922
Primary sources on American Slavery
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture and Law (Hein)
Brings together all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world, including colony, state and federal statutes on slavery and all reported state and federal cases on slavery, as well as legal commentary on slavery published before 1920.

Black Abolitionist Archive
A collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period; created by the University of Detroit Mercy.
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 freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher.
North American Slave Narratives
Collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of Black people struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries; hosted by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
Explore or reconstruct the lives of individuals who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in the historical trade.