African American Studies

This database contains all the materials the library provides access to through Accessible Archives. Some of the materials in this database (African American Newspapers, Pennsylvania Gazette, etc.) are owned outright by the library and have their own listings elsewhere in the database listings, but this entry will give you access to the content we subscribe to on a temporary basis as well. Accessible Archives is made up of a number of digitized historical newspapers which cover a range of topics, but which generally focus on early American history.

The National Negro Congress was established in 1936 to "secure the right of the Negro people to be free from Jim Crowism, segregation, discrimination, lynching, and mob violence" and "to promote the spirit of unity and cooperation between Negro and white people." It was conceived as a national coalition of church, labor, and civil rights organizations that would coordinate protest action in the face of deteriorating economic conditions for blacks.

A part of the Accessible Archives collection, this database provides access to a selection of prominent African-American newspapers. The Marriott Library has purchased access to a portion of this database which includes papers like Freedom's Journal, The North Star, Colored American, National Era, Frederick Douglass Paper, Provincial Freeman, The Christian Recorder, and the Douglass Monthly Supplement. The Archives also include a rotatin…

America: History and Life indexes literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With indexing for 1,700 journals from as far back as 1910, this database is a strong bibliographic reference tool for students and scholars of U.S. and Canadian history. This database also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. The predominantly English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and…

This database contains over 1300 plays by over 200 playwrights, together with information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. Over 500 of the plays are published there for the first time. The works from early 20th-century America include writings of the Harlem Renaissance, works performed for the Federal Theatre Project, and plays by dramatists through t…

Booker T. Washington, founder of the National Negro Business League, believed that solutions to the problem of racial discrimination were primarily economic, and that bringing African Americans into the middle class was the key. In 1900, he established the League "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro," and headed it until his death. Content: 15,779 images Source: Library of Congress

ProQuest History Vault's coverage of the Black Freedom Struggle offers the opportunity to study the most well-known and also unheralded events of the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history. This category consists of the NAACP Papers and federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century.

The NAACP branch files in this module chronicle the local heroes of the civil rights revolution via NAACP branches throughout the United States, from 1913-1972. The contributions of scores of local leaders—attorneys, community organizers, financial benefactors, students, mothers, school teachers, and other participants—are revealed in these records. The Branch Department, Branch Files, and Youth Department Files in this module of NAACP Papers will allow researchers at all levels new opportunities to explore the contributions of NAACP local leaders. The branch files also indicate how effectively the NAACP national office used the branch network to advance the NAACP national program. The Youth Department Files document how the NAACP tapped the energy and talent of college students and other young people at the state and local levels.

Major campaigns for equal access to education, voting, employment, housing and the military are covered in this module. The education files in this module document the NAACP’s systematic assault on segregated education that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Files from 1955 –1965 focus on the NAACP’s efforts to implement the Brown decision as well as to combat de facto segregation outside of the South.

The NAACP was involved in several subjects that did not rise to the level of major campaigns but were still vital to the organization. This module contains records on those subjects, and in so doing, reveals the wide scope of NAACP activism and interest. These files cover subjects and episodes that are crucial to the NAACP's history, such as civil rights complaints and legislation, the Klan, Birth of a Nation, the Walter White-W. E. B. Du Bois controversy of 1933-1934, communism and anticommunism during the years of the "red scare," the congressional prosecution of Hollywood personalities, the prosecution of conscientious objectors during World War II, NAACP’s relations with African colonial liberation movements, NAACP fundraising and membership recruitment, urban riots, the War on Poverty, and the emergence of the Black Power Movement.

This module consists of Papers of the NAACP Legal Department from 1956-1972. For the period from 1956-1965, this includes the working case files of the NAACP’s general counsel, Robert Carter. Among the topics covered in these cases are school desegregation, abuses of police procedure, freedom of speech, desegregation of public facilities, voting rights, housing discrimination, and employment discrimination. The files include the background correspondence of NAACP attorneys as well as court documents, including transcripts of court proceedings. A small sampling of the important cases in this module include NAACP v. Alabama (freedom of association), Gomillion v. Lightfoot (voting rights), Allen v. County School Board and Griffin v. County School Board (school desegregation in Virginia), Ogletree v. McNamara (employment discrimination), and Powell v. McCormack (seating of Congressman Adam Clayton Powell in the U.S. House of Representatives).

This NAACP module focuses on the NAACP’s efforts regarding anti-lynching, peonage, and discrimination in employment and the criminal justice system. A rich set of records in this module is the NAACP file on one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the 20th century – the case of the Scottsboro boys. In this case, nine young black men were accused of raping two white women on a train in northern Alabama. Sixteen days after their arrest, eight of the nine teenagers were sentenced to death in the electric chair. All eight escaped execution when the Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Powell v. Alabama, ruled that the defendants had been inadequately represented by counsel.

This listing provides access to a collection of language and subject reference works which the Marriott Library has purchased through Oxford University Press. The collection is cross-searchable and can also be browsed by title or entry. Users can retrieve over 2 million short and long subject reference entries (many of which are illustrated), bilingual dictionaries, English dictionaries, quotations, and proverbs. Patrons may also sign up for a (free) personal account which will allow searches…

This database provides access to a collection of peer-reviewed articles and original papers in the field of philosophy. Over 950 professional philosophers collaboratively write, referee, and maintain this reference work, and the University of Utah is a supporter of the project. The Encyclopedia is updated and revised regularly on a per-article basis.

The Women's Studies Encyclopedia contains information about women from many fields and disciplines of study, focusing on the American experience (though many entries are related to women in other parts of the world as well).