African American Studies
A guide with resources and tips for doing research in African American Studies
Printed Primary Sources
Search the library catalog for primary sources.
Consider using the following subheadings to identify useful primary source material: autobiographies, autobiography, campaign speeches, correspondence, diaries, interviews, personal narratives, public opinion, speeches, addresses.
Visit Special Collections
The University of Utah's Special Collections library preserves and provides access to rare and unique materials for everyone from students and locals to scholars worldwide. These collections include rare books, maps, photos, recordings, and manuscripts documenting local and global history, with a focus on Utah and the Intermountain West. The library also has a strong preservation program to protect these materials for future use.
Primary Source Portals
Don't know where to start? Try one of the following database portals. They allow researchers to search across the web and multiple databases produced by the same publisher.
- Adam Matthew Primary Source Collections This link opens in a new windowAdam Matthew publishes unique primary source collections from archives around the world.
- Accessible Archives This link opens in a new windowThis 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.
- African American Communities This link opens in a new windowFocusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
- African American Newspapers This link opens in a new windowA 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…
- African American newspapers, series 1 and 2, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new windowAfrican American Newspapers, Series 1 and 2, 1827-1998, provides online access to more than 350 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African-American experience. This unique collection, which includes historically significant papers from more than 35 states, features many rare 19th-century titles.
- American History This link opens in a new windowFrom Adam Matthew (AM), This unique collection documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945 - Fight for Racial Justice and the Civil Rights Congress This link opens in a new windowThe Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was established in 1946 to, among other things, "combat all forms of discrimination against…labor, the Negro people and the Jewish people, and racial, political, religious, and national minorities." The CRC arose out of the merger of three groups with ties to the Communist Party, the International Labor Defense (ILD), the National Negro Congress, and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. CRC campaigns helped pioneer many of the tactics that civil rights movement activists would employ in the late 1950s and 1960s. The CRC folded in 1955 under pressure from the U.S. Attorney General and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which accused the organization of being subversive. 115,378 images Source Library:Schomburg Center, New York Public Library
- Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League This link opens in a new windowBooker 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
