Afro American Studies

A general guide to library research in Afro American Studies.

Library Guide to Afro Am 691C:
Historiographical Methods in Afro-American Studies

This research guide was prepared for Afro American Studies 691C: Historiographical Methods in Afro-American Studies.
Fall 2006, 2008 & 2016, Professor John Bracey. Fall 2010 & 2012, Professor Ernest Allen, Fall 2020 & 2024 Professor Anne Kerth
Library guide created by Isabel Espinal, Librarian for Afro American Studies

Citation Management

Use a citation manager, such as Zotero to keep track of your research.

Put all your references in one place, create quick and easy bibliographies, build your knowledgebase for the rest of your career. For help, check out the online guides and webinars or Ask a Librarian.

Some tips on using Chicago notation style with Zotero.

Primary Sources

Open Access African American Newspapers

African American Newspapers in Library of Congress' Chronicling America
As of April 11, 2020, 100 African American Newspapers have been digitized for this collection. Includes small newspapers across the United States, not found elsewhere.

Other African American Open Access Primary Sources

Cornell Hip Hop Digital Collection
In order to make Hip Hop’s history widely and freely available to the public, the Cornell Hip Hop Collection began digitizing portions of its archives in 2012. Additional collections will be digitized in the future, as copyright, permissions, and resources permit.
Digital Records of the Colored Conventions Project
This site features the hundreds of collected documents of the Colored Conventions movement, spanning from the 1830s through the 1890s.
UC San Diego Guide to Online Primary Sources: African Americans
Primary sources available online: free web collections as well as UCSD subscription-based resources.
African American Perspectives (Library of Congress)
"African American Perspectives" gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture and is primarily comprised of two collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the African American Pamphlet Collection and the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African-American history. The 800 + titles in the collection include sermons on racial pride and political activism; annual reports of charitable, educational, and political organizations; and college catalogs and graduation orations from the Hampton Institute, Morgan College, and Wilberforce University. Also included are biographies, slave narratives, speeches by members of Congress, legal documents, poetry, playbills, dramas, and librettos.

ProQuest Historical African American Newspapers

Mostly 20th Century

Black Panther newspaper
(Via the database Black Thought and Culture) The Black Panther was the official newspaper for the Black Panther Party. It was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1967 and ran through 1980 printing 537 issues. The newspaper distributed information about the party's activities and the ideologies of the Black Panther Party, focusing on both international revolutions as inspiration and contemporary racial struggles of African Americans across the United States. In its later years, it served as a platform to rally support for members of the party who became political prisoners.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Combined search of historic Afro-American and ethnic and alternative newspapers, and historical Boston Globe, New York Times, and Washington Post.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers
Combined search of: Historical Atlanta Daily World, Historical Baltimore Afro-American, Historical Chicago Defender‎, Historical Cleveland Call & Post, Historical New York Amsterdam, Historical Norfolk Journal and Guide, Historical Philadelphia Tribune, Historical Pittsburgh Courier

Historical Newspaper: Atlanta Daily World This link opens in a new window
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Full-text of black newspaper, with coverage from 1931-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: Baltimore Afro-American This link opens in a new window
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Full-text of black newspaper, with coverage from 1893-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: Chicago Defender This link opens in a new window
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Full-text of black weekly newspaper, with coverage from 1909-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: Cleveland Call & Post This link opens in a new window
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Full-text of black newspaper under all its title variants, with coverage from 1934-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: New York Amsterdam News This link opens in a new window
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Newspaper of the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, 1922-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: Norfolk Journal and Guide This link opens in a new window
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Full-text of black newspaper under all its title variants, with coverage from 1916-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: Philadelphia Tribune This link opens in a new window
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The oldest continuously published black newspaper is dedicated to the needs and concerns of the fourth largest black community in the U.S., with coverage from 1912-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: Pittsburgh Courier This link opens in a new window
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One of the leading newspapers of the African American community in the U.S., with coverage from 1911-2010.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Nineteenth Century African American Periodicals

African American Historical Serials Collection This link opens in a new window
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Periodicals, newspapers and magazines pertaining to African American religious life and culture, with more than 170 unique publications spanning from 1829 through 1922.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
African American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Starting with the Freedom’s Journal in 1827 and continuing in chronological order with the monthly addition of new text, this database plans to ultimately contain the complete text of the major African American newspapers published in the United States during the 19th century. Currently contains the following newspapers: Freedom's Journal, The Coloured American, The North Star, The National Era, Provincial Freeman, Frederick Douglass Paper, and The Christian Recorder.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Other African American Primary Sources UMass Databases

African American Music Reference This link opens in a new window
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Brings together text reference, biographies, chronologies, sheet music, images, lyrics, liner notes, and discographies which chronicle the diverse history and culture of the African American experience through music. The database is constantly expanding to include comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
African American Poetry‎ This link opens in a new window
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The early history of African American poetry, from the first recorded poem by an African American (Lucy Terry Prince's 'Bars Fight', c.1746) to the major poets of the nineteenth century, including Paul Laurence Dunbar and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
American Music This link opens in a new window
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Audio database which documents African American music, including jazz, blues, gospel, ragtime, folk songs, and narratives, from the Document Records label. Browse by category of music, region, genre, instrument, artist, ensemble, and time period. A playlist option is available. Over 1400 African American music albums, 1890's-1970's.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window
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Papers and articles of 300 US and European anti-slavery activists of color, 1830-1865.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century This link opens in a new window
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Features records of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and federal records on the Black Freedom Struggle.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
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Collection of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the African American community from 1700s to 1975.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Black Women Writers This link opens in a new window
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A growing collection of literary works by about 77 African, African American, and Afro-Caribbean women.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
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Full-text articles from newspapers, magazines and journals of ethnic communities in the United States. In several languages, 1965-present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
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The HistoryMakers is a national 501 (c)(3) non-profit video oral history archive headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The HistoryMakers is dedicated to preserving African American history as the missing link in American history. Focused on American history, oral history and education in general and more specifically on African American history, education, music, law, the arts, science, technology, media, medicine, entertainment, fashion & beauty, business, the military, politics and sports, The History Makers is a combination archive, library, museum, stock footage collection, on-line educator and educational PBS/TV programming. Its topics include but are not limited to African American organizations and associations, slavery, reconstruction, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and black authors."
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Other Primary Sources

Ancestry Library This link opens in a new window
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Premier genealogical resource. Census forms/schedules and many other historical tools. Birth, marriage, and death records; early passport applications; passenger lists; military and immigration records; city/school directories; Sears catalogs; and more.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
ArchiveGrid connects you with archives around the world to find historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more.
Content is freely available for use by all.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
A database of historical American newspapers from all states, from 1789-1963; nearly 15 million pages. This resource also includes a directory of newspapers published in the United States since 1690.
Content is freely available for use by all.
Five Colleges Archives and Manuscript Collections This link opens in a new window
Explore unique digital collections from Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges.
Content is freely available for use by all.
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
Academic library partnership providing searching and downloading of public-domain books and specialized services for text mining projects.

Please see more... below for what is available to UMass faculty, staff and students and what is available for community patrons.
For anyone in the world, you can access these materials in HathiTrust:
- Search across the entire collection
- Read and view works that are “full-view”
- Search within works that are “limited (search-only)”
- Download a single page at a time from works that have download restrictions (e.g., works that are in the public domain but were digitized by Google or other vendors with contractual limitations)
- Download an entire work that doesn’t have download restrictions (e.g., works digitized by Internet Archive and other organizations, works that have been opened with a Creative Commons license)
For UMass faculty, staff and students, you can additionally access the following if you log in with your NetID and password using the HathiTrust link above:
- Download public domain works that have download restrictions (see “Can I download a whole book?” for more information);
- Create, save and share public or private collections?;
- Access copyrighted works lawfully in appropriate circumstances (see accessibility and out-of-print and brittle for more information).
Members can not view or download works that are “limited (search-only)”. See “Is it possible to view a volume that is Limited (search-only)?” for more information.
Historical Newspaper: Boston Globe This link opens in a new window
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Massachusetts' newspaper of record, 1872-1991. Additional content is added yearly.

Users must limit their search to "full text" on the left side of the screen to make sure they only get results that include the Full Text. Without the limiter, the "abstracts" will be indexed as well.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Newspaper: New York Times This link opens in a new window
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Full-text of The New York Times, with coverage from 1851 to three years ago.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
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Statistics gathered by the Census Bureau, with scholarly editing and essays, from colonial times to near present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Internet Archive
Full text for a variety of digitized print materials and archived web pages (Wayback Machine), as well as manuscripts (a few), digitized microfilm, films, audio files, TV News, and more. Unlike Google and Hathitrust, usually offers multiple download options including e-readers.

Historical Newspaper: Washington Post This link opens in a new window
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Newspaper of record of the U.S. capital, with coverage from 1877-2007.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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Music Magazine Archive is a series of digital collections focused on 20th and 21st century genres - Rock, Folk, Hip-Hop and Rap.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
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Primary source material for life as it was lived by 1,325 women in North America, 1675-1950.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Readers' Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new window
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Citations and abstracts for articles from popular periodicals from the U.S. and Canada, 1890-1982.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
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Primary and secondary sources on women's involvement in historical events in the United States. Includes books, pamphlets, papers, and articles.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Women Writers Project This link opens in a new window
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Literary works by women writers, 1600-1800.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Secondary Sources

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly journals from all academic disciplines - an excellent starting point for multidisciplinary research projects. 3,200 full-text journals. Coverage from 1975 to present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
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Journal articles, dissertations, and book reviews, many in full text, relating to United States and Canadian history and prehistory, 1954-present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index This link opens in a new window
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Arts and humanities journal literature from 1975 to present. Searches by author, topic, cited reference and more.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
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Combines key indices (Schomburg, IIBP, etc) to scholarship and primary sources in Afro-American studies.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Contemporary Black Biography This link opens in a new window
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Biographies of thousands of African Americans.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Dissertations and Theses This link opens in a new window
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US and Canadian dissertations and theses from 1861 to present. Mostly full-text 1997 to present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
ERIC This link opens in a new window
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Education journal articles (EJ references) and ERIC documents (ED references), 1967-present. EDs before 1997 are requestable using the Microforms Request page and usable in the Microforms Vewing Room in the LC.
A free version of ERIC is available for all to use at this link: https://eric.ed.gov/.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) This link opens in a new window
Indexes of over 3.5 million graduate-level electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) that are freely available online.
Content is freely available for use by all.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Core scholarly journals from a range of disciplines, dating from the earliest issue of each journal to a few years before present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
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Index to articles from peer-reviewed journals in all disciplines.Search by cited reference, topic, author, and more. Arts and Humanities covers 1975-present; Social Sciences 1900-present; and Science 1900-present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
WorldCat This link opens in a new window
The combined catalogs of most U.S. libraries.
Content is freely available for use by all.

More Databases

FOR MORE HISTORICAL DATABASES - GET A FREE eCARD FROM THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Boston Public Library (BPL) and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) offer all Massachusetts residents remote access to proprietary databases. This includes historical newspapers, government information, and geneaology sources.

Connect to databases for Massachusetts residents at https://www.bpl.org/online-resources/.

Local history

Don't forget about local History collections at public libraries. Many public library local history collections are not digitized, but the effort is growing.

Online encyclopedia

Spotlight on: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers & W.E.B. Du Bois Center

W.E.B. Du Bois Papers

Search and view correspondence, writings, and photographs in the W. E. B. Du Bois Papers online.

And/ or visit the Special Collections and University Archives department of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, located on the 25th floor.

Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., during the academic year, except major holidays.

During semester breaks, on certain holidays, and in the summer, Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) is open 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m

W.E.B. Du Bois Center

Located on the 22nd floor of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, the W. E. B. Du Bois Center was established in 2009 to engage the nation and the world in discussion and scholarship about the global issues involving race, labor and social justice.

Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Some primary sources

Mary Church Terrell, "What Role Is the Educated Negro Woman to Play in the Uplifting of Her Race?" in Twentieth Century Negro Literature, Or a Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro, ed. and arranged by D. W. Culp (Naperville, Ill.: J. L. Nichols, 1902), pp. 172-77.

From the database:

Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 This link opens in a new window
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Explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women's voices.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

The Colored American/Weekly Advocate

On January 7, 1837 Phillip A. Bell began to publish a weekly newspaper called Weekly Advocate. From the beginning, one of the major goals of this newspaper was to educate its subscribers, and much information appeared in a list format including: principal railroads, lengths of rivers, heights of principal mountains, principal colleges in the United States and the principal features of various countries of the nations of the earth.

On March 4, 1837, issue number 9 of the newspaper was published under the new name of The Colored American, with Samuel E. Cornish as editor. The new motto was “RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A NATION,” and the paper was “…designed to be the organ of Colored Americans—to be looked on as their own, and devoted to their interests—through which they can make known their views to the public—can communicate with each other and their friends, and their friends with them; and to maintain their well-known sentiments on the subjects of Abolition and Colonization, viz.—emancipation without expatriation—the extirpation of prejudice—the enactment of equal laws, and a full and free investiture of their rights as men and citizens…”

From the database:

African American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Seven nineteenth-century African American newspapers in full text, including advertising, 1827-1902.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Microforms

Black Abolitionist papers, 1830-1865 UM/Microform Storage 10429, 17 reels. For a guide to the papers see Ref E499.B625 1981. Also available online in database format.

The Claude A. Barnett Papers UM Microform Storage 6910. 91 reels. For index, see The Claude A. Barnett Papers : the Associated Negro Press, 1918-1967 edited by August Meier and Elliott Rudwick. UM/Ref. E185.5 .N272

Federal surveillance of Afro-Americans (1917-1925): the First World War, the Red scare, and the Garvey movement UM Microform Storage 669. 25 reels.

Microfilm edition of slavery and antislavery pamphlets from the libraries of Salmon P. Chase & John P. Hale UM Microform Storage 5460, 5 reels. Microfilm of pamphlet collection at Dartmouth College Library. For an index to the collection see Ref. Z 7164 S6H42

Papers of the NAACP UM/Microform Storage 7578. Numerous reels. For indexes, see
A Guide to papers of the NAACP, part I, 1909-1950 : meetings of the Board of Directors, records of annual conferences, major speeches, and special reports UM/Ref. E185.5 .N272
A guide to Papers of the NAACP : Part 2, 1919-1939 : personal correspondence of selected NAACP officials UM/Ref. E185.5 .N2722
Papers of the NAACP, part 3 : the campaign for educational equality; Legal Department and Central Office records, 1913-1950 / guide compiled by Martin Schipper UM/Ref. E185.5 .N27221 Ser.A-D
...and other indexes in the Reference collection
W.E.B. Du Bois Papers UM/Microfilm 4877. 89 reels. For index, see the book The Papers of W.E.B. Du Bois, 1803 (1877-1963) 1979: a Guide by Robert W. McDonnell UM Microforms Guides E185.5 .M3

For your convenience, we recommend that you request microforms through the Electronic Request Form before coming to the microforms area to do your work. When filling out the electronic form please list a specific call number along with a specific reel number, if applicable.

Reference Sources

Most of these are located on the Main floor of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.

Africana: the Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience Ref DT14 .A37435 2005
Black Women in America Ref. E185.86 .B542 2005
Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: the Black Experience in the Americas online
Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America Ref E185.96 .F2 1997
Revealing Documents: a Guide to African American Manuscript Sources in the Schlesinger Library and the Radcliffe College Archives Z1361.N39 V66 1993 (21st floor)
Who's Who in African-American History Ref E185.96 .W46 1994

Librarian in New Africa House

One on one consultation

I can meet you at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, at New African House, on Zoom or other online venues. To request an appointment or get any other help, please use this form or send me an email.

Afro American Studies

Library Guide to Afro Am 691C:
Historiographical Methods in Afro-American Studies

Citation Management