LibGuides: Primary Source Databases Research Guide: African Americans

Civil Rights and African Americans

The ProQuest History Vault includes the scanned and searchable archival records of several major civil rights organizations:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Congress of Racial Equality
National Association of Colored Women's Clubs
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

In addition, the database includes Federal government records pertinent to civil rights spanning the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt through George H.W. Bush. These records encompass a number of FBI Files, including those compiled on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

History Vault This link opens in a new window

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
African American Newspapers, 1827-1998, provides online access to more than 350 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This unique collection, which includes historically significant papers from more than 35 states, features many rare 19th-century titles.

Omaha Star Historical Archive, 1938-2011; and current file, 2011-

The Omaha Star Historical Archive, 1938-2011, includes scanned and searchable images of the newspaper. You may also select issues to view page-by-page. The Omaha Star, 2011- current file is updated daily and provides searchable article texts.

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law

From HeinOnline, this collection brings together, for the first time, all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world, as well as materials on free African-Americans in the colonies and the U.S. before 1870. Included are every statute passed by every state and colony, all federal statutes, all reported state and federal cases on slavery, and hundreds of books and pamphlets on the subject. In total, the collection contains more than 1,000 titles and nearly 850,000 pages.

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Archival collections were sourced from more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University; these collections allow for unparalleled depth and breadth of content.