African American Studies

 Features more than 170 periodicals by and about African Americans, published in 26 states.  Includes popular magazines, academic and political journals, organization bulletins, and other genres.  Selection is based on James P. Dankey's African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography (Harvard, 1998).  Scanned from collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Can be cross-searched by keyword with African American Newspapers, Afro-Americana Imprints and other Archive of Americana series, using the Archive of Americana link below.

1825-1995

Black Studies in Video is an Alexander Street Press collection featuring award-winning documentaries, newsreels, interviews and archival footage surveying the evolution of black culture in the United States. In partnership with California Newsreel, the database provides unique access to their African American Perspectives collection, and includes films covering history, politics, art and culture, family structure, social and economic pressures, and gender relations.  Upon completion, Black Studies in Video will have about 500 hours of video, in streaming format.  

Videos from Alexander Street Press can be downloaded to a phone or other portable device for viewing within 24 hours.

 

This collection is created from the Library Company of Philadelphia's acclaimed Afro-Americana Collection. When complete, this unique online resource will provide researchers with more than 12,000 printed works. These essential books, pamphlets and broadsides, including many lesser-known imprints, hold an unparalleled record of African American history, literature and culture. This collection spans nearly 400 years, from the early 16th to the early 20th century. Critically important subjects covered include the West's discovery and exploitation of Africa; the rise of slavery in the New World along with the growth and success of abolitionist movements; the development of racial thought and racism; descriptions of African American life -- slave and free -- throughout the Americas; and slavery and race in fiction and drama. Also featured are printed works of African American individuals and organizations. **At present, the online collection is only 8% complete.**

Can be cross-searched by keyword with African American Newspapers, African American Periodicals and other Archive of Americana series, using the Archive of Americana link below.

1535-1922

The Atlanta Constitution gives today’s researchers a vivid, first-hand account of one of the most turbulent periods in American history: post-Civil War reconstruction. This is an ideal primary resource for studying the feelings and reactions of Southerners on the passage of the 14th Amendment, the purging of “Rebels” from the legislature, the giving—then denying—of the right to vote to former slaves, and the passing of economic policies that changed the South and the United States forever.

This unique resource also captures the history of commercial giant Coca-Cola® in articles and display advertisements. It follows the development of baseball in America, including the Southern League’s Atlanta Crackers, sometimes called the “Yankees of the south” due to the team’s winning ways. The Atlanta Constitution also gives researchers the opportunity to read the original Uncle Remus stories that featured tricky Brer Rabbit and his foe, Brer Fox. Captured and written by Constitution journalist Joel Chandler Harris, these African folktales later inspired Walt Disney’s Song of the South and Warner Bros. cartoon character Bugs Bunny.

NOTE: This product is the updated version of: http://www.lib.umich.edu/database/link/28611

Black Drama, now it its expanded second edition, contains the full text of more than 1,460 plays written
from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 250 playwrights from North America, English-speaking
Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or
out of print. James Vernon Hatch, the playwright, historian, and curator of the landmark Hatch-Billops
Collection, is the project’s editorial advisor. Over 40% of the collection consists of previously unpublished
plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph
Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.

Each play is extensively and deeply indexed, allowing both keyword and multi-fielded searching. The
plays are accompanied by reference materials, significant ancillary information, a rich performance
database, and images. The result is an exceptionally deep and unified collection that illustrates the many
purposes that black theater has served: to give testimony to the ancient foundations of black culture; to
protest injustices; to project emerging images of the New Black; and to give voice to the many and varied
expressions of black creativity.

The works from early twentieth-century America include key writings of the Harlem Renaissance, works
performed for the Federal Theatre Project, and plays by critically acclaimed dramatists through the
1940s. Included are the plays of Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, Ira
Aldridge, Shirley Graham, W.E.B. Du Bois, Randolph Edmonds, Georgia Douglas Johnson, May Miller,
Willis Richardson, Eulalie Spence, and many others. The plays address a wide range of struggles and
triumphs, including migration to Northern cities, mothers keeping families together, exploitation by white
land owners, interracial unity, racial violence, civil rights activism, and the black war hero.

American works from the later twentieth century cover the Black Arts movement of the sixties and
seventies, works performed by the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS), The Negro Ensemble
Company, and other companies. The collection includes plays by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), James
Baldwin, Ossie Davis, Charles Fuller, Ron Milner, Adrienne Kennedy, Anna Deavere Smith, Alice
Childress, Charles Smith, Dael Orlandersmith, Ntozake Shange, Melvin Van Peebles, Joseph Walker,
Richard Wesley, and August Wilson, to name a few. The plays explore themes including civil rights,
desegregation, and a wide range of ideologies—integrationist and separatist, revolutionary and
nationalist.

African and Caribbean drama is represented by a wide collection of plays from Ghana, Uganda, Sierra
Leone, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, the West Indies, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world.
It includes works by writers such as David Edgecombe, Bode Sewande, Ngugi wa Thiong'o , Femi
Osofisan, Zakes Mda, John Ruganda, Dennis Scott, Zulu Sofola, Paul Boakye, Errol John, Fatima Dike,
Clifford Sealy, Joe de Graft, Richard Rive, Bole Butake, Matsemela Manaka, Errol Hill, and Derrick
Walcott. The plays deal with the social and political ills stemming from colonialism, slavery, and
apartheid; the struggle for independence; African history; and neocolonialism. Of particular interest is
material written as “Township Theatre” in South Africa under apartheid and during the development of
black grassroots urban theatre.

Full-text searchable access to the complete backfile of Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002), a major African American community newspaper.  Includes original page images digitized from microfilm.

1911 - 2002

Full-text searchable access to the complete backfile of Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), a major African American community newspaper.  Includes original page images digitized from microfilm.

1934 - 2005

Full-text searchable access to the complete backfile of Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), a major African American community newspaper.  Includes original page images digitized from microfilm.

1931 - 2003

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 provides online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This collection features papers from more than 35 states. Part of the Readex America's Historical Newspapers collection, African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 was created from the most extensive African American newspaper archives in the United States—those of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress.

Can be cross-searched by keyword with African American Periodicals, Afro-Americana Imprints and other Archive of Americana series, using the Archive of Americana link below.

1827-1998

Portal to the following full-text American and English literature databases: * AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY * AMERICAN POETRY * AMERICAN DRAMA 1714–1915 * CANADIAN POETRY * EARLY AMERICAN FICTION 1789–1850 * EARLY ENGLISH PROSE FICTION * EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION * ENGLISH DRAMA * ENGLISH POETRY, SECOND EDITION * NINETEENTH-CENTURY FICTION * TWENTIETH-CENTURY AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY * TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY