Walker Library: *Literature: African American Literature

Databases for African American Literature & History

ProQuest One Black Studies
Extensive collection of primary and secondary sources, including leading historical Black newspapers, archival documents and collections, key government materials, videos, writings by major Black intellectuals and leaders, scholarly journals, and essays by top scholars in Black Studies.
Black Thought and Culture

Searchable texts of non-fiction work by prominent African Americans, 1700 to present.

Contains 1,297 sources with 1,098 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.
African American Poetry
Complete texts for poetry by African Americans, 1746-1900.

Contains nearly 3,000 poems by African American poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It provides a comprehensive survey of the early history of African American poetry, from the earliest published African American poems to the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first African American poet to achieve national success and recognition.
African American Music Reference
Chronicles the diverse history and culture of the African American experience through music.

• Full text from major reference works
• Biographies and personal narratives from oral histories
• Manuscripts, song-sheets, lyrics, discography data, and other text sources
cover jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and
blues, gospel, and other forms of African American musical expression
Twentieth-Century African American Poetry
Database of modern and contemporary African American poetry, featuring almost 9,000 poems by 62 of the most important African American poets of the last century, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde and Rita Dove.
African American Historical Serials Collection

Digitized periodicals, reports, and annuals documenting history of African American life and religious organizations between 1829 and 1922.

Content includes:
-More than 170 unique titles related to African American life and culture
-Approximately 60,000 pages of searchable primary source content
-Reports and annuals from African American religious organizations and social service agencies, as well as African American periodicals
Coverage list
Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830-1865
Unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865. Content includes letters, speeches, editorials, articles, sermons, and essays from libraries and archives in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States.

Over 15,000 items written by nearly 300 Black men and women are available for searching. Unique, hand-written correspondence and documents comprise around 30% of this collection. See brochure (PDF) for more information.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century, Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Pt 1

Records of major civil rights organizations and personal papers of leaders and observers of the 20th century Black freedom struggle.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century, Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Pt 2

Includes records of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Africa-related papers of Claude Barnett, and the Robert F. Williams Papers.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records, Supplement

Consists of civil rights records from the Ford and Regan presidencies.
African American Newspapers (History Commons)

19th century African American newspapers in full-text searchable form with page images.

Select Titles in Collection:
The Bee
The Christian Recorder
The Colored American/Weekly Advocate
Frederick Douglass' Paper
Freedom's Journal
The Langston City Herald
The Louisianan
The Nashville Globe
The National Era
The North Star
Provincial Freeman
The Semi-Weekly Louisianian
The Tulsa Star
...and more