African-American Studies

Databases by Category
African American Studies
* These resources require a Houston Public Library Power Card for access from your home or office.

African American Biographical Database
The largest electronic collection of biographical information on African Americans from 1790 to1950.*
African American Experience
A full-text digital resource exploring the history and culture of African Americans, as well as the greater Black Diaspora by providing rock-solid information from authorities in the field and allowing African Americans to speak for themselves through a wealth of primary sources.*
African American History Online
This comprehensive database includes subject entries, primary sources, images and videos, general and topic-specific timelines, biographies, maps and charts, and more.*
African American Music Reference
Contains comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression chronicling the rich history of this music through 1970.*

African American Reference E-book Titles
Search 10 Gale reference titles related to African American culture, history, and literature simultaneously.*
Black Collegian Online
Employment and career information for students and professionals of color. Resume posting available.
Black Drama
Contains the full text of plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries.*
Black Short Fiction
Short fiction produced by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora from the earliest times to the present compiled from early literary magazines, archives, and the personal collections of the authors.*
Black Studies Center
Black Studies Center is a fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies including scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, and much more.*

Black Thought and Culture
An electronic collection of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders covering 250 years of history including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trail transcripts.*

Black Women Writers
Presents literature and essays by authors from Africa and the African Diaspora.*
Chicago Defender Historical Archive
Full page view of the Chicago Defender from 1910-1975.*
Civil War Era
Includes the fulltext of 6 regional newspapers from all sides of the conflict from 1840-1865 as well as 2,000 slavery, anti-slavery and Civil War pamphlets.*
Historic Atlanta Daily World
The Atlanta Daily World had the first black White House correspondent and was the first black daily in the nation in the 20th century. Search fulltext from 1931 to 2003.*
Historic New York Amsterdam News
A leading Black newspaper of the 20th century, especially the 1940s. Search fulltext from 1922 to 1993.*
Oxford African American Studies Center
Includes articles, maps, and timelines about African Americans.*
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive. Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition
Includes documents, newspaper collections, and books from the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world published in the antebellum.*
Sources in U.S. History Online: Slavery in America
This is a digital collection of over 600 documents: personal narratives, pamphlets, political speeches, sermons, plays, songs, poetic and fictional works published between the 17th and late 19th centuries.*
Sources in U.S. History Online: The Civil War
This digital archive examines the war; its battles and campaigns, the home front and the military campground, from its causes to its consequences.*
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
The Voyages Database contains records of nearly 35,000 separate slaving voyages between 1514 and 1866, gleaned from original documents and historical publications located in archives, libraries, and other institutions throughout the world.