African American Studies: Primary Sources - History

Black Abolitionist Papers, which covers the period 1830-1865, details the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War. This collection presents the massive, international impact of African American activism against slavery, in the writings and publications of the activists themselves. It includes articles, correspondence, documents, editorials, essays, lectures, literary works, manuscripts, poems, proceedings, receipts, sermons, and speeches of Black abolitionists in Canada, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and the United States, including content from several African American, abolitionist, and reform newspapers.

This collection from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) library contains more than 88,000 documents pertaining to the federal surveillance of African Americans from 1920-1984.

Composed of FBI surveillance files on the activities of the African Liberation Support Committee and All African People’s Revolutionary Party; this collection provides two unique views on African American support for liberation struggles in Africa, the issue of Pan-Africanism, and the role of African independence movements as political leverage for domestic Black struggles.

The collection consists of materials from 1913 through 1998 that document African American
author and activist Amiri Baraka. It includes poetry, organizational records, print publications, articles, plays, speeches, personal correspondence, oral histories, as well as some personal records. The materials cover Baraka’s involvement in the politics in Newark, N.J. and in Black Power movement organizations such as the Congress of African People, the National Black Conference movement, the Black Women’s United Front. Later materials document Baraka’s increasing involvement in Marxism.

An historical archive that embraces the scholarly study of slavery in a comprehensive, conceptual, and global way.