Find Books
You can search the library catalog for books (both print books and ebooks) or if you visit the library, you can browse the shelves. Look for these call numbers to find books related to African-American studies and the scholarly and cultural contributions of African-Americans.
- BR563.N4 African-American Religion
- BT82, BT83 Liberation Theology (including Black liberation theology)
- E185 African-American History
- HT851-1445 Slavery
- HT1501-1595 Sociology of Race
- PS153 African-American Women Authors
- PS508 African-American Literature
African-American and African Culture
- PBS Black Culture ConnectionPBS Black Culture Connection is a guide to films, stories and voices across public television centered around Black history & culture.
- Feast AfriqueFeast Afrique is a celebration of West African culinary heritage curated by Ozoz Sokoh - The Kitchen Butterfly.
African-American Newspapers
This includes current and historical publications.
- FreedomFreedom (1951-55) was a newspaper founded in Harlem, New York by activists Paul Robeson and Louis Burnham during the Cold War and McCarthy eras. It openly challenged racism, imperialism, colonialism, and political repression and advocated for civil rights, labor rights and world peace. Its writers and contributors included W.E.B. Du Bois, Alice Childress and Lorraine Hansberry.
- BlackNews.comA directory of regional African-American newspapers in the US.
- Afro: The Black Media AuthorityAn international newspaper edited by African-Americans exploring local, national, and international issues involving people of African descent.
Find Articles
General Websites
- Notable Kentucky African Americans DatabaseThere are more notable African Americans with Kentucky roots and ties than any one person knows about. Very little has been written about many of them and it is a challenge to find what was written in the past. For some, their stories have only been told by word of mouth. The Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (NKAA) has been developed as a finding aid to bring together a brief description of pertinent names, places, and events, and to list the sources where additional information may be found.
- University of California Television - Programs in African-American StudiesA collection of videos including lectures and discussion on topics in African-American history.
- Kentucky African American Heritage Commission (KAAHC)The Kentucky African American Heritage Commission (KAAHC) identifies and promotes awareness of significant African American influences on the history and culture of Kentucky and to support and encourage the preservation of Kentucky African American heritage and historic sites.
Primary Sources & Historical Data
- The African-American Migration ExperienceIn Motion: The African-American Migration Experience is A compilation of text, illustrations, and maps that presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds.
- African-American OdysseyFrom the library of congress, this is a digital exhibition of books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings related to African American history
- African American History Project (AAHP)The African American History Project (AAHP) is an archive of 300+ oral history interviews conducted with African Americans around Alachua County and the American South. The collection centers on integration, education, and life in the Jim Crow South, and is the largest public African American history collection in the state of Florida.
- American Slave Narratives: An Online AnthologyFrom 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. These former slaves, most born in the last years of the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms.
- Amistad Research CenterThe Amistad Research Center is committed to collecting, preserving, and providing open access to original materials that reference the social and cultural importance of America's ethnic and racial history, the African Diaspora, human relations, and civil rights.
- Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC)The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is a Chicago-based membership association of libraries, universities, museums, community/arts organizations and other archival institutions. The BMRC’s mission is to connect all who seek to document, share, understand and preserve Black experiences.
- The Black PastA 10,000 page reference center on African American History that contains an online encyclopedia on African American History, Global African History, and history of African Americans in the West.
- Civil Rights Digital LibraryA treasure trove of primary sources. Search by keyword, or browse events, people, places, and topics. Or, browse media types (e.g. sound recordings, newsletters). Links are to catalog records of collections of oral histories and other materials from institutions around the U.S. See the "Persistent Link to Item" at the bottom of each record. Copy and paste the url into your browser to access the actual resource. From the CRDL, a partnership of librarians, educators, and others.
- Hutchins Center for African and African American ResearchThe nation's oldest research center dedicated to the study of the history, culture, and social institutions of African Americans.
- John Hope Franklin Research CenterThe Franklin Research Center collects, preserves and promotes the use of published and unpublished primary sources for the exploration, understanding and advancement of scholarship of the history and culture of Africa and people of the African Diaspora in the Americas.
- New York Public Library Digital Gallery on Africana & Black HistorySeveral thousand items ranging from historical documents and rare visual materials to contemporary photo-journalism, relating to the entirety of African American history from the 16th century to the present
- NYPL - Schomburg Center for Research in Black CultureFounded in 1925 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2017, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. As a research division of The New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center features diverse programming and collections spanning over 11 million items that illuminate the richness of global black history, arts, and culture.
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