Africana Studies

Subject Resources for Sociology, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Political Science, Women's Studies and others will also be useful to consult.

Gateway Sites

• Africa Index -- News service, with additional information sites.
• African Governments on the Web -- A compilation of official government Web sites for each country, as well as a selection of more general informational resources.
• African Human Rights Resource Center -- University of Minnesota
• Africa South of the Sahara -- Access to information arranged by country and topic.
• African Studies Internet Resources -- An extensive and comprehensive list of sites from Columbia University.
• An A-Z of Africa --A comprehensive compilation of Africa-related sites, in alphabetical order.
• Columbia -- Comprehensive site with access both by country name and broad topic.
• The Electronic African Bookworm: A Web Navigator -- Access to Web sites of libraries in Africa and to some of the major Africana libraries in the countries of the North, as well as annotated listings of the major publishers (outside Africa) with African studies lists. Additional links cover a variety of resources for writers and editors, African literary and cultural journals, and a number of African literature sites. There is also a section on ICT and the Internet in Africa and electronic networks for development, with many useful Web sites featuring discussions and resource material on Internet infrastructure and connectivity in Africa.
• H-Africa Home Page -- Part of the H-Net Humanities and Social Sciences OnLine consortium of scholarly lists. Encourages the interdisciplinary discussion of Africa's history, culture, and African studies. Other related sites include H-AfrArts Expressive Cultures of Africa.
• H-Afrlitcine -- For the discussion and exploration of African literature and cinema.
• H-Afro-Am Discussion Logs
-- Maintained by Michigan State University.
• Race and Ethnicity
-- One of over forty literary collections on the EServer. Consists of reference material, essays, and other works addressing issues of race and ethnicity in the United States.
• Sun SITE Southern Africa -- Links to several topics including Arts & Culture Associations & Conferences, Development/Environment, Economics & Finance, Daily Foreign Exchange rates, Education, Health,Media & News, Politics & Law Research, Science & Technology in Southern Africa, from WITS University.
• University of Pennsylvania -- The "original" mega-site for African studies.

Bibliographies

• Africa: Selected Reference Sources 2000
-- Reference sources available in the UC Berkeley Library. Includes archives, atlases, bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, statistical sources and indexes.
• AfricaBib -- AfricaBib is a free service created in 1999 as a way to disseminate information from two African studies databases. The databases are created and maintained by Davis Bullwinkle, Director of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Institute for Economic Advancement (IEA) Library.
• African Women: Selected Journal Issues & Articles and African Women: Selected English-Language Monographs -- Bibliographies from the Center for African Studies - The University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign
• African American Literature
-- A collection of syllabi from several universities offering courses on African American literature.
• African Americans and Education: Bibliography
-- This bibliography lists selected resources of the New York State Library that document and comment on the educational experiences of African Americans in the United States. In addition to primary sources and significant works, this document contains selected references to bibliographies, research aids, and reference works. Resource materials in journals and reports are not emphasized.
• Diaspora Bibliography
-- UC Berkeley Africana holdings.
• Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography -- Bibliographies cover any aspect of Africa, its peoples, their homes, cities, towns, districts, states, countries, regions, including social, economic sustainable development, creative literature, the arts, and the Diaspora, for example: Female Circumcision and Infibulation in Africa

Research Guides

• Africana in Academic and Research Libraries -- Libraries with significant Africana studies collections. Many of the collections listed focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Basic Guide to Research on Africa at Columbia University
-- Contains general reference works, atlases and maps, indexes and databases, guides to dissertations and archival collections, journals, research center publications, newspapers, bibliographies and other resource guides on the Internet.
• Africana Studies Guide -- (pdf file) Selected reference sources in the University at Albany Main reference collection.
• University at Albany -- Databases and Online Journals alphabetical list -- Please see also, How to Find Articles by Topic
• Guides, Collections and Ancillary Materials to African Archival Resources in the United States
• Primary Sources, Secondary Sources: Explanations
-- Online guide from UC Berkeley Library.

Academic Sites, Research Centers

• African and African Diaspora Studies -- Links to other African and Diaspora studies programs. Links to other study abroad programs.
• Africa South of the Sahara and Africa: Library & Information Resources (Stanford University Library) -- Karen Fung is a highly respected Africana Web Editor. A very good place to start.
• African American Cultural Center Library (Indiana University) -- Founded in 1972. The mission of the African American Cultural Center Library is to further promote the teaching of the African American experience including its history and culture and to continue its tradition of multiculturalism.
• African American Studies (Temple University) -- Provides general information about undergraduate and graduate studies in the African-American Studies Department at Temple, its faculty, and its programs.
• African American Studies Department (University of California, Berkeley) -- UC Berkeley Library Catalog.
• African Studies (University of Florida) -- Information on Africana resources at the UF George A. Smathers Libraries.
• African Studies Center (University of Pennsylvania) -- Ali B. Ali-Dinar is a highly respected Africana Web Editor. A very good place to start. Check out his Links and locate materials beyond Albany through the U Penn Library Catalog.
• African Studies Organizations
-- From Stanford University Libraries. An annotated list of organizations with African Studies programs.
• The African Studies Program (University of Wisconsin at Madison) -- Information on the Africana Studies program including course offerings and faculty.
• Africana / Afro-Americana Library Units (University of Illinois) -- Information on resources available at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign.
• Africana Studies (State University of New York at Albany) -- Information on the Department of Africana Studies including courses and faculty.
• Amistad Research Center (Tulane University) -- Among the largest of the nation's repositories specializing in the history of African Americans. Papers of African Americans and records of organizations and institutions of the African American community make up about 90 percent of the Center's holdings.
• Blacks Studies Library Website (Ohio State University) -- The Black Studies Library, Ohio State University.
• Center for AfroAmerican and African Studies (University of Michigan) -- The Center for AfroAmerican and African Studies (CAAS) functions as an academic department and as three area studies programs. It has its own undergraduate program, courses, and faculty. It is also a home for interdisciplinary area studies research. It helps promote scholarship and teaching in African Studies, African American Studies, and Afro-Caribbean Studies throughout the University of Michigan.
• Institute for Research in African American Studies (Columbia University) -- Resources in African American Studies available at Columbia University.
• John Henrik Clarke Africana Library (Cornell University) -- Provides a special collection focusing on the history and culture of people of African ancestry.
• The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. Atlanta, Georgia -- King Center information, biographies of Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr., and chronologies of African American events.
• Race Relations Institute (Fisk University) -- Interracial and intraracial dialogue and scholarship on global systems of racism and strategies to overcome racial injustice.
• The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Library (NYPL Harlem-NYC) -- New York Public Library Catalog login or also check out Digital Schomburg Images (Digital Collections Home).
• Smithsonian (Washington DC) -- African American History and Culture resources and exhibitions. See also, The Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture
• W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research (Harvard University) -- Provides information on the following publications: TRANSITION Magazine, Black Biographical Dictionaries, 1790-1950, and Oxford University Press Series.
• William Monroe Trotter Institute (University of Massachusetts) -- Topics of current and past research projects related to Africana studies. The Trotter Institute addresses the needs and concerns of the Black community of Boston and Massachusetts through research, technical assistance, and public service.
• World Wide Web Subject Catalog -Africa (University of Kentucky) -- Selection of Web resources related to Africana studies.

African Studies

• Africa Policy Information Center -- Contains policy debate in the United States around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa. Includes country studies, background papers and excellent regional and country specific data and meta-site links. Also see Ali B. Ali-Dinar's Country-Specific Pages from the University of Pennsylvania.
• Africa Information Research Center -- A team of development analysts and consultants specialising in Sub-Saharan Africa providing information and research to the development community, governments, academic and commercial organisations. The team compiles reports and offers support and assistance to development projects. Higher Education in Africa and libraries in Africa are also linked here.
• Africa Research Central -- An on-line directory of organizations that house primary source materials related to the African continent.
• African Diaspora
-- From Columbia University, African Studies. List of web sites containing information on African Diaspora.
• African National Congress
-- Contains news from South Africa, related Internet resources, government information and politically-oriented Web sites as well as specific information about the ANC.
• African Women's Rights -- Key sites and documents that focus on South Africa and global women's issues. In addition, full-text policy-oriented APIC documents (Africa Policy Information Center)are provided.
• Afropop Worldwide
• Centre for Civil Society
-- This South African center focuses on strengthening the non-profit and voluntary sector by disseminating information to the sector itself, and by building networks and encouraging collaboration both within the sector and between it and researchers and teachers in Higher Education institutions around the country. Research and advocacy skills are promoted. Categories include social movements, labor unions and directories of non-governmental organizations (ngo's)and community based organizations(cbo's) in South Africa.
• Columbia University
-- Art & Archaeology of Africa.
• Black/African Related Resources -- A list of online information storage sites (FTP, Gopher, Telnet, WWW, BBS, Database, etc.) that contain a significant amount of information relating to or of concern to Black or African people, culture, and issues around the world, either in files or conferences. Also included (in other sections of the list) are resources relating to Ethnic/Intercultural Relations, International/Sustainable Development (includes Global Networking), and Social/Progressive Activism.
• Center for African Studies -- Human Rights -- Sites specific to African human rights issues.
From the Center for African Studies and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Web sites containing human rights resources organized by categories: continent/regions, country, international, issues and legal.
• Images of Colonial Africa -- Photographs taken by Laura Collins, a missionary in Africa during the early 20th century. The images are one woman's view, mostly of Kenya, at the beginning of the twentieth century, probably before 1914. They depict the country's society, customs, economics, and geography, as well as its growing Christian church, the missionary community assisting in that endeavor, and Collins herself. Also included are some photographs from Cameroon, the Belgian Congo and Uganda.
• Kwame Nkrumah Information & Resource Site -- The site was originally crafted in 1997 while the editor was working toward a dissertation concerning Nkrumah's contributions to Pan-Africanism. Africology, African Liberation Movement (ALM), African Personality, African Unity Movement(AUM), Pan-Africanism, Synthetic Afrocentric Paradigm are among the terms defined. The Introduction and Resources section includes primary, secondary, and tertiary sources on Kwame Nkrumah's life and works, a very influential Ghanaian leader.
• Mathematicians of the African Diaspora -- Exhibits the accomplishments of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora within the Mathematical Sciences.
• Religious Tolerance -- Provides brief descriptive information on African religions, Islam, Santaria,VODUN(and related religions such as:Candomble, Lucumi, Macumba, Voodoo, Vodoun, Vodou, and Yoruba.
• South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Resources -- Claims to be the largest repository of public information on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, although not the official site for the Commission. Includes the text of the TRC report, Amnesty Decisions, TRC statements, public hearings and discussion.

African American Studies

• African American Artists -- A USC site which documents contributions by African Americans in the development of American culture.
• African American Mosaic - Library of Congress
-- A Library of Congress resource guide for the study of black history and culture.
• African American Studies Links -- An excellent place to begin. This site has an extensive list of topics with updated sites.
• Black History Quest
-- African-American history, culture, and black studies resources.
• Black Voices Today
-- A popular culture site containing informative Afro-centric content on diverse topics. Includes black news, career information, chat rooms and message boards.
• Center for Black Music Research
-- A research unit of Columbia College Chicago devoted to research, preservation, and dissemination of information about the history of black music on a global scale.
• Civil Rights Legislation
-- Title 42, Chapter 21 of the U.S. Code.
• Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
• Encyclopedia Britannica's Guide to Black History
-- Examines five centuries of black heritage through five distinct time periods, from the slave revolts of early America through the successes of the Civil Rights Movement. Features 600 informative articles and is illustrated with historical film clips and audio recordings, as well as hundreds of photographs and other images.
• The Faces of Science: African-Americans in the Sciences
-- Profiled here are African American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science and engineering. A Louisiana State University exhibition that includes images, biographies, and links to other science and technology topics.
• Harlem Renaissance 1900-1940 -- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Harlem Renaissance Authors Rudolph Fisher Newsletter. All of the essays/articles have been selected from among publications currently indexed by the MLA International Bibliography database. Also see Harlem Renaissance or Women of the Harlem Renaissance.
• Marian Anderson: A Life in Song
-- This exhibition celebrates the artistic development and musical career of Marian Anderson. The material available includes personal papers--letters, music scores, programs, photographs, and sound recordings--housed at the University of Pennsylvania Library in the Annenberg Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black History Month -- Selected Reference Sources from Louisiana State University Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA.
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
-- Home page for the NAACP.
• National Black Child Development Institute
-- A nonprofit organization that provides and supports programs, workshops, and resources for African American children, their parents and communities in: early health and education, health, elementary and secondary education, child welfare and parenting.
• Paul Robeson Timeline -- From Rutgers University.
Focuses on Paul Robeson's place in history.
• Southern Poverty Law Center
-- A non-profit organization that combats hate, intolerance and discrimination through education and litigation. Its programs include Teaching Tolerance and the Intelligence Project, which incorporates Klanwatch and the Militia Task Force. The Center also sponsors the Civil Rights Memorial which celebrates the memory of 40 individuals who died during the Civil Rights Movement.
• Universal Black Pages
-- A comprehensive listing of African-diaspora-related Web pages at a central site.
• W.E.B. Du Bois Institute
-- The nation's oldest research center dedicated to the study of the history, culture, and social institutions of African Americans. Founded in 1975, the Institute serves as the site for research projects, fellowships for emerging and established scholars, publications, conferences, and Working Groups. The Institute also sponsors two major lecture series each year, and serves as the co-sponsor for numerous public conferences, lectures, readings, and forums.
• Without Sanctuary -- Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America
• Writing Black
-- Literature and History written by and on African Americans

Archival, Digital and Primary Source Collections

• African Americans - Milwaukee Urban Archives,The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee -- An annotated listing.
• African-American Health Care Experience in Michigan: A guide to Sources
-- From U. Michigan Historical Center. Documents the African American health care experience in Southeastern Michigan from the early 20th Century through the present from the perspective of both the health care provider and the patient. Includes manuscript and archival resources associated with African American doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals.
• The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture
-- A guide to the institution's African-American collections. It covers four areas: colonization, abolition, migrations and the WPA.
• African American Newspapers Collection
-- African American newspapers available at the Stanford University Libraries.
• African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship (Library of Congress)
-- Showcases the Library's African American collections. Includes a wide array of important and rare books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.
• African American Perspectives
-- A Library of Congress Special Collection. The Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection presents a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love.
• African-American Women On-line Archival Collections
-- Special collections at Duke University. Includes Elizabeth Johnson Harris, Vilet Lester, Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson.
• The African Presence in the Americas 1492-1992 -- On-line exhibition portfolio-- The African presence in the Americas is a direct consequences of the European - Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, French and English - colonization of the "New World." Produced by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library.
• Afro-American Sources in Virginia: A guide to Manuscripts
-- Online book by Michael Plunkett.
• African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
-- A digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.
• Afro-Americana -- Selected Digital collections from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Includes Civil Rights Code of the U.S., Slave narratives, Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and other useful sources.
• American Life Histories - Manuscripts from the Federal Writer's Project, 1936-1940
-- From the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
• Archives of African American Music and Culture (Indiana University)
-- A repository of materials covering various musical idioms and cultural expressions from the post-World War II era. Provides access to oral histories, photographs, musical and print manuscripts, audio and video recordings, and educational broadcast programs. Provides reference services in person and by telephone, mail, and the Internet.
• Archives USA - Repositories and Archive Collections
-- Access to holdings and contact information of more than 5,400 repositories. Indexes to over 117,000 special collections.
• "A Durable Memento" -- Portraits by Augustus Washington, African American daguerreotypist. A National Portrait Gallery exhibition.
• Illustrations -- Guide to African American Documentary sources in North Carolina.
• Images of 19th Century African-Americans - Digital Images from the New York Public Library, Schomburg Collections
-- Photos of 19th-century African Americans from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library that document the social, political and cultural life worlds of African-American people from slavery to various stages of quasi freedom.
• The International Museum of the Horse
-- Buffalo Soldiers on the Western Frontier.
• Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project
-- An African Studies research project on Marcus Garvey supported through UCLA
• Martin Luther King Jr. - Papers at Stanford
-- Historical information concerning Martin Luther King, Jr. and the social movements in which he participated. Initiated by the Atlanta-based King Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Includes full-text access to papers, speeches, sermons and articles.
• Minority On-line Information Service
-- Provides the latest information on Black and Hispanic colleges' and universities' missions, strengths and emerging capabilities. A Telnet-accessible system.
• National Civil Rights Museum
-- Interactive tour available that features permanent exhibits of the museum. The mission of the museum is to educate and preserve the memory of the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Negro League Baseball
-- Contains an online article archive, current feature articles, team/player profiles and a fan discussion forum.
• Records of the 105th U.S. Colored Troops
-- Organized at Charleston, SC. Spring and Summer of 1865.
• Resources for African-American History, M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany -- Primary source material, local archival collections.

News, Documentaries, Film and Video

• African-American/African Diaspora Studies Audiocassettes and Videotapes
-- African American studies resources. Includes videos and videographies. From Moffit Library, UC Berkeley.
• Afro News
-- News from around the nation of interest to the African-American community.
• The BBC World Service Online
-- News from the BBC.
• Black Film Center/Archive (Indiana University)
-- Contains selected film clips of African Americans in cinema.
• Black Film Center Archives Internet Sites on film and video -- A selected list of film-related Internet resources. Some filmographies available.

• The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords
-- PBS Online. Focuses on the men and women who helped shape the history of the black press. Includes bibliography and web sites on the history of the Black press under "Resources and Links".
• California Newsreel
-- Descriptive list of available educational videos on African and African American Studies. Topics include history, race relations and diversity training, African cinema, media and society, labor studies, campus life and more.
• Channel Africa
-- News from Africa via short wave, satellite and internet radio.
• Daily Mail and Guardian
-- Current news in South Africa.
• First Run Icarus Films - Films and Videos About the African-American Experience
-- Films on African American studies from First Run/Icarus Films.
• The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela
-- A Frontline documentary from WGBH Boston Public Television.
• The Two Nations of Black America
-- A Frontline documentary from WGBH Boston Public Television.

Slavery, the Slave Trade, Abolition, Emancipation

• African American History of Western New York
• African Americans in Early Albany -- A Basic Reading List Sources
• African Burial Ground Under New York Streets -- Christian Science Monitor news article.
• Afro-Albanians -- "Family Reconstitution" projects, "Colonial Albany Social History Project", and "Community Biography Approach to Local History" by Stefan Bielinski, Community Historian.
• American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology -- Sample narratives from a WPA (Works Progress Administration) interview project which reveals the life experience of slaves in North America from 1936-1938.
• Born In Slavery -- American Memory Project, Library of Congress. To search by time period
• Ex-slave Narratives -- From the Library of Congress African American Mosaic
• Freedmen's Bureau On-line -- Includes documents reporting outrages and murdered persons after 1865.
• Influence of Prominent Abolitionists -- From the Library of Congress African American Mosaic
• Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library -- American Memory Project, Library of Congress
• Narratives of the Life of Frederick Douglas -- Full-text of "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave" by Frederick Douglass.
• Records Relating to African Americans in the New York State Archives, Albany New York -- (Description of Collections only) "That every child born of a slave within this State after the fourth of July next, shall be deemed and adjudged to be born free . . ." From the Laws of 1799, Chapter 62 [13036] Early Dutch settlers brought slaves from Angola and Brazil to work their new farms in the Hudson Valley. Slavery continued in New Netherland and in the succeeding British colony and State of New York over the next two centuries. At the end of the eighteenth century, New York had the largest number of slaves of any northern state. The institution of slavery is documented in the Dutch and British colonial Council minutes and papers, which document official government actions pertaining to slavery [A1809, A1894, A1895]. In 1785 New York State began the gradual process of eliminating slavery by prohibiting the importation of slaves for sale. In 1799 the State ensured the eventual freedom of children born to slaves, and by 1827 all slaves owned by New York residents were freed. Unique documentation of slave owners and children of slaves is contained in records of the State Treasurer and State Comptroller for the period 1797-1820 [A0827, A3211].
• Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries -- This site provides access to the raw data and documentation which contains information on slave trade topics.
• Slave Voices
-- Description and images of items maintained at The Special Collections Library at Duke University.
• Slavery and Slavetrade -- University of California Santa Barbara site on Black Studies Resources.
• Slavery Scholars and Researchers -- University of California Santa Barbara site on Black Studies Resources.
• Underground Railroad in Rochester New York -- includes the Fugitive Slave Act and information on the Abolitionists.
• Underground Railroad Workshop -- The Albany and Capital Region Underground Railroad Web Page.