(Ohio Historical Society)
Robert E. Williams (d. 1937), an African-American Photographer, operated a photography studio, R. Williams and Son, in Augusta, Georgia, from 1888 until around 1908. 84 images show African-Americans in the Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia area, including depictions of dwellings and domestic chores, rituals of baptism, harvesting and transporting cotton, vehicles and transportation, and children and family life. (Digital Library of Georgia)
(African Studies Center, Michigan State Univ.)
(Library of Congress)
(Maryland State Archives)
(Thurgood Marshall Law Library, Univ. of Maryland)
Photographs, news clippings, pamphlets, scrapbooks, directories, and newsletters documents the experience of African American women in Iowa during the twentieth century, ca. 1924-1970. (Michigan State Univ.)
(Duke Univ.)
(PBS)
(Michigan State Univ.)
Click "Exhibition" and page through using the "Next" links (lower right of the page) to see various images and primary documents. (National Library of Medicine)
"Black Film Archive celebrates the rich, abundant history of Black cinema. We are an evolving archive dedicated to making historically and culturally significant films made from 1915 to 1979 about Black people accessible through a streaming guide with cultural context."
Click "View the Collection" to actually access recorded songs, but be sure to check out the interviews on this homepage to understand the collection's context. You may also be interested in this story from Public Radio International about how the black gospel recordings of the 1960s and 1970s relate to the civil rights movement. (Baylor Univ.)
Includes primary sources on slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, black in the World Wars, and the Civil Rights Movement. (Fold3)
(BlackPast.org; Quintard Taylor, Professor of American History)
(Afrigeneas)
The Richmond Planet was an important African American newspaper in the age of segregation. This site is not a comprehensive archive, but does present some of the most important articles printed each year, along with essays on their significance. (Univ. of Richmond)
(Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
(NAACP / Google Books)
Includes a number of documents and images related to 19th century African American history. Click "Browse Subjects" to find subjects related to African Americans, or just do a search. (New York Public Library)
An interactive mapping tool for visualizing primary data drawn from legal records, newspapers and other archival and published sources, about everyday life in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, 1915-1930. Focuses on the lower socioeconomic end of the population rather than the affluent members of Harlem society. (Note: the map images themselves are not primary documents, but the data being mapped is original data from primary sources, as detailed on the Sources tab.) (Univ. of Sydney)
The papers of Dorothy West (1907-1998), Harlem Renaissance writer and long-time resident of Martha's Vineyard. These papers (ca.1890-1998) contain drafts, manuscripts, published stories and articles, issues of Challenge and New Challenge, correspondence with other Harlem Renaissance writers, family correspondence, and photographs. (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University)
Documents disagreements on race among American Catholics in the 1920s and 1930s. (Catholic Univ. of America)
"Leonidas Berry, M.D. (1902–1995) devoted his life to combating segregation and what are known today as racial disparities in health. Examine photographs, publications, and correspondence that document a life of advocacy for equality and justice in health care." (National Library of Medicine)
(Library of Congress)
Paul Heinegg's books available online.
Enter an individual's name to search FamilySearch.org’s extensive database of more than 5 billion searchable names in historical records.
Scroll down to the individual collection descriptions, and use the "View Collection Online" link to view any collection of sources. (Louisiana State Univ. Libraries)
Oral history interviews conducted in the 1980s with aging Philadelphians who participated in and witnessed firsthand the first Great Migration to Philadelphia between 1910 and 1930. (West Chester Univ.)
(Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)
Photographs, documents, and other items that document the significant black population which existed in Knox County, Ohio, for several hundred years. (Kenyon College)
(Smithsonian Institute)
The Negro Travelers’ Green Book was a travel guide series published from 1936 to 1964 by Victor H. Green. It was intended to provide African American motorists and tourists with the information necessary to board, dine, and sightsee comfortably and safely during the era of segregation. The New York Public Library presents digital editions of the 1937-1964 green books. (New York Public Library)
(Virginia Center for Digital History)
(Univ. of Wisconsin)
"This book provides biographical sketches of noteworthy African Americans in Texas, and advice on how African Americans can lead fulfilling lives." (Houston Public Library)
Digital images from the 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Univ. of Tulsa)
(Virginia Center for Digital History)
Well-known African American attorney Walter L. Gordon collected these photographs taken by the African American newspaper the California Eagle. The photos depict black social life in Los Angeles, leading members of the black community, black resorts, local political figures, jazz legends, and more. (UCLA/Univ. of California Los Angeles)
Digitization of a rare first edition of Douglass' 1852 oration. (Internet Archive)