HIS 180: African American History: 1865 to Present: Find Primary Sources

"Chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience, African American Newspapers, Series 1, features 280 newspapers from 35 states, including many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles. These titles published for or by African Americans constitute valuable primary sources for researchers exploring such diverse disciplines as cultural, literary and social history; ethnic studies and more. Beginning with Freedom’s Journal (NY)—the first African American newspaper published in the United States—the titles in this groundbreaking series include The Colored Citizen (KS), Arkansas State Press, Rights of All (NY), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York Age, L'Union (LA), Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate (NY), Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, The Appeal (MN) and hundreds of others."

Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records consists of digitized primary documents drawn from several archives and licensed by Gitenstein Library from ProQuest. It is but one module residing within the larger ProQuest History Vault collection. (Our library does not license the other modules, but see Black Freedom Struggle in the United States, ProQuest's complementary open access website that contains a selection of about 1,600 documents from all modules in the "Black Freedom" series.) The twentieth century federal government records—the module to which our library has access—spans the period from 1901 to 1991. Sub-collections are titled African Americans in the Military; Black Workers in the Era of the Great Migration, 1916-1929; Centers of the Southern Struggle: FBI Files on Montgomery, Albany, St. Augustine, Selma, and Memphis; Civil Rights During the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Bush Administrations; Civil Rights and the Federal Government (various topics); East St. Louis Riot of 1917; FBI Files on Black Extremist Organizations; Federal Surveillance of Afro-Americans (1917-1925); Martin Luther King, Jr. FBI File; New Deal Agencies and Black America; Peonage Files of the U.S. Department of Justice, 1901-1945; President Truman's Committee on Civil Rights; Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practices: Racial Tension File, 1943-1945; and Records of the Tuskegee Airmen.

(1851-2008) Provides full text access to the New York Times up to three years ago. Historical New York Times provides information on a wide variety of topics including national and international news, biographies, social and economic issues, the arts, literature, music, the sciences, business, and much more. The database may be searched by author, dates, keywords, and title. Editorials, reviews, obituaries, photos, illustrations, and ads are included. Individual articles or the whole page may be viewed.

International in scope, this title contains primary source materials from the 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries. Broad topics include the development of human rights, slavery and genocide, imprisonment, health and housing, labor and working conditions, civil and political rights, and others. Also included are a chronology and a bibliography.

"This documentary website tells the story of how young activists in SNCC united with local people in the Deep South to build a grassroots movement for change that empowered the Black community and transformed the nation."

(1600 – 2000) This database in American women’s history includes more than 70 document projects, each of which poses a topic and provides a collection of documents, images and links to websites to address the topic. About 5000 pages are added annually to the present database of nearly 30,000 pages of primary and secondary documents. Nearly 600 publications from the Women’s Commission Reports are also being added. Other features are a chronology of U.S. women’s history and a dictionary of social movements and organizations.