Walker Library: *African American Studies: Home

African American Studies Resources

Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Indexes more than 8000 scholarly journals. Most are peer reviewed; many are full text.
Academic Search Ultimate is an excellent source of scholarly journals in all academic disciplines. More than 13,600 journals are indexed and full text is provided for more than 9,000. Searchable cited references are provided for selected titles. Title List
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
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.
Ethnic NewsWatch: A History This link opens in a new window
1960-1989
An interdisciplinary, comprehensive full text database of newspapers, magazines and journals from ethnic, minority and native presses. Publications offer both national and regional coverage.
Rare collection of over 30 full-text titles, focusing on African American, Hispanic American, and Native American presses from 1959-1989. Unique perspectives are presented on the most important issues concerning ethnicities and minorities in the U.S. and Canada during the pivotal years of the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text access to back issues of 18 scholarly journals in the field of African American Studies.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Full text access to over 300 high quality, scholarly journals.

Primary Sources

Look here for Primary Source materials.

HeritageQuest Online This link opens in a new window
1700s-early 20th century
Includes digital images of U.S. federal census records, U.S. Serial Set, Freedman's Bank records, genealogy sources, local history collections, and other primary sources.
Need help getting started? Consult these Research Aids
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Colonial period to current
Nonfiction published works of leading African Americans, including books, essays, articles, speeches, interviews, letters and other fugitive materials.
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.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
1490-2007
Includes documents and collections chronicling the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
Artstor This link opens in a new window
More than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and science.
Warning:
Content that flashes at certain frequencies can trigger seizures in individuals who have photosensitive seizure disorders. A small number of videos on Artstor display flashing at higher than recommended frequencies for viewers with such disorders. Artstor is currently exploring remediation. To avoid seizure, users with photosensitivity should contact Artstor support for more information prior to viewing videos.

The ARTstor Digital Library is a nonprofit resource that provides over 2.5 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research.
African American Music Reference This link opens in a new window
Contains over 4,000 essays covering blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.
• 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
African American Poetry This link opens in a new window
1746 - 1900
Poems written by African Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Includes full-text of the poems and biographical information on poets.
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.
Twentieth-Century African American Poetry This link opens in a new window
Complete texts of a broadly representative collection of approximately 9000 poems by 20th century African American poets. A biography is provided for each author.
NAACP Papers This link opens in a new window
Digitized documents from the NAACP's major campaigns and important local NAACP branches, 1909-1972. Full-text and searchable. Part of the Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle collection, which also includes Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century modules.
Digital copies of nearly two million pages of NAACP internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. Click on a module below for a content description.

Modules:
Board of Directors, Annual Conferences, Major Speeches, and National Staff Files
Branch Department, Branch Files and Youth Department Files
Special Files
The NAACP's Major Campaigns - Education, Voting, Housing, Employment, Armed Forces
The NAACP's Major Campaigns - Legal Department Files
The NAACP's Major Campaigns - Scottsboro, Anti-Lynching, Criminal Justice, Peonage, Labor, and Segregation and Discrimination Complaints and Responses
African American Newspapers (History Commons) This link opens in a new window
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
African American Historical Serials Collection This link opens in a new window
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
Slavery and Abolition, 1789-1887 This link opens in a new window
This historic collection chronicles the African American experience during the 19th century.