History and Genealogy – African American

 

African Burial Ground Memorial

https://www.nps.gov/afbg/index.htm

Human remains were found 30 feet underground when government buildings were being erected in 1990s. 

"This discovery led to the study of a long-forgotten chapter in New York’s history when enslaved Africans helped build the colony of New Amsterdam (before it changed to New York)."

 

African American History Archives

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/index.html 

Primary documents for cultural, economic, political, labor, and social history.

 

African American History: Digital Collections

https://www.loc.gov/collections/?fa=subject:african+american+history

Richly illustrated from the Library of Congress. 

 

The African American Registry

https://aaregistry.org

Search by category (e.g., arts, business, education, sports, religion) and learn about people and events which changed the world.  You can also discover significant issues for any date, such as what occurred on your birthday.

 

Africans in America:  Historical Documents

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/rb_index_hd.html 

This large compendium of primary sources encompasses famous documents, such as “Am I Not a Man and a Brother,” “Benjamin Banneker’s Almanac,” and “Angelina Grimke Weld’s Speech at Pennsylvania Hall”; it also includes other significant but less well known materials.

 

Africans in America:  People and Events

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/rb_index_pe.html 

Fine discussions of topics, like the Middle Passage and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry, accompany biographical information about significant figures, like Olaudah Equino and Sara Allen.

 

AfriGeneas

http://www.afrigeneas.com 

"African Ancestored Genealogy": a how-to guide, state listings, surnames, information about slaves and slavery, forums, etc.

 

Afro-American

http://tinyurl.com/jz4t4jw

Searchable text of the Afro-American (Baltimore newspaper) from 1902 through 1992, from Google News.

 

African American Soldiers in the Civil War

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2106266,00.html

Time Magazine presents pictorials of African American soldiers in the Civil War.

 

Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas:  Image Search 

http://slaveryimages.org

Maps and pictures show trade routes, trading posts, slave ships, plantation scenes, domestic servants, recreational activities, family life, military activities, punishment, emancipation, portraits, etc.

 

Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)

https://asalh.org

The mission of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History is "to promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the global community." 

 

Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: A Selection of Primary Sources

https://blackfreedom.proquest.com/ 

A collection of approximately 1600 primary source materials documenting the struggle for Black Freedom through six eras, beginning in 1790 with the Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement and moving through to contemporary times.  Appropriate for students from Middle School to independent scholars.

 

Black Panther Party: UC Berkeley Social Activism Recording Project

https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=819842&p=5923284

Timeline of events related to the Black Panther Party with robust collection of links to videos and other sources. Images no longer updated, but information is well-sourced. 

 

The Black Radical Tradition

http://tinyurl.com/ovb8dex

"A massive PDF compilation of writings about black radical and revolutionary movements in the US in the 20th century."

 

BlackPast

https://www.blackpast.org/black-past-features/african-american-history-genealogy-2/

Genealogy resource compilation list. 

 

Brown v. Board of Education

http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown

"An online companion to a Smithsonian National Museum of American History exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary (May 17, 2004) of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision. The site traces the history of segregation, the battle for education, and the events leading to the historic decision."

 

Buffalo Soldiers & Indian Wars

http://www.buffalosoldier.net 

Illustrated with photographs, this site reveals the hardships and heroism of both sides, offering overviews of battles and notable Buffalo Soldiers' biographies.

 

The CAF Red Tail Squadron (Virtual Museum)

http://www.redtail.org/virtual-museum

"Red Tail is the CAF Red Tail Squadron’s three-fold outreach program that brings the history and legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen to life in communities and classrooms everywhere."

 

Civil Rights

http://www.uen.org/core/socialstudies/civil

From the Utah Education Network, an excellent timeline of events with links to further information.

 

Civil Rights Digital Library

http://crdl.usg.edu

This University of Georgia resource delivers an "enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale."  Look here for events, places, people, and a wide range of topics, such as boycotts, community organizing, school desegregation, and voting rights.

 

The Civil Rights Movement on Pinterest

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/civil-rights-movement/?p=1

A collage of pictures and captions. Some pictures are moving, others are frightful. They all capture something about that era and our current era.

 

Finding Records of Your African American Ancestors - 1870 to Present

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/African_American_Genealogy

This web site explains how to find records of African American family members who died after 1870. Instructions are provided for finding names, birth dates, and birth places of your ancestor's family members; and full names and marriage information of your ancestor's parents.

 

Historically Black

https://historicallyblack.tumblr.com

Collected stories and posts of the Black experience in history and in the present.

 

In Motion: The African American Migration Experience

http://inmotionaame.org/home.cfm 

Created by New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and featuring more than 16,500 pages of essays, books, articles, and manuscripts; 8,300 illustrations; 60 maps and more—this site teaches us about the slave trade, the Great Migration, and other journeys, including those of new immigrants from Caribbean (including Haitian) and African regions.

 

Juneteenth

http://www.juneteenth.com 

A description and history of Juneteenth, a celebration of the emancipation of slaves in this nation.

 

National Burial Database of Enslaved Americans

https://nabdea.com

IN PROCESS OF BEING DEVELOPED, broken link

"The database project is in its initial stage of development and is not available for public searches.  However, if you have information on a burial or burial ground of a formerly enslaved American to be included in the future database, please make a preliminary submission on the Submit a Burial page." To read about the project, see this article. 

 

National Museum of African American History and Culture

https://nmaahc.si.edu

Site for Smithsonian museum with visit and exhibit information. 

 

Patriots of Color

http://www.archives.com/Patriots  

The Patriots of Color project was established to identify persons of color who served the Continental cause in the American Revolution.

 

Reconstruction and Its Aftermath

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart5.html 

"Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, two more years of war, service by African American troops, and the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was still unprepared to deal with the question of full citizenship for its newly freed Black population. The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society."  This Library of Congress exhibit illustrates the struggle.

 

Reparations Library

http://reparationslibrary.org/

Reparations Library (RLib) is dedicated to the dissemination of information as it pertains to African American genealogical research. The Reparations Librarian believes reparations to African American descendants of slaves in the United States will occur at some point. The amount, the how, the when, the who must be led by knowledgeable African Americans, and informed, sensible and compassionate non-African Americans.

 

The Revised Dred Scott Case Collection

http://digital.wustl.edu/dredscott

"In 1846, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court. This suit began an eleven-year legal fight that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a landmark decision declaring that Scott remain a slave....The records displayed in this exhibit document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant records of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court."

 

The Revolution's Black Soldiers

http://americanrevolution.org/blk.html 

A lengthy essay, with links and a bibliography, about the contributions of African Americans to our country's independence from Britain.

 

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/index.html

With essays and images, this PBS documentary explores segregation in our nation.  Among the featured topics are the influences of Reconstruction, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Niagara Movement and the NAACP, the film “Birth of a Nation,” and Jackie Robinson. 

 

Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection

http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/mayantislavery/index.php

These pamphlets, collected at Cornell University, are available for browsing and for searching.  The arguments presented are powerful and have applications today, when civil rights goals have yet to be realized. 

 

Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech

A collection of the audio and transcripts of speeches by famous African Americans. Features speeches by Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Mary McLeod Bethune, Dick Gregory, Fannie Lou Hamer, Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Toure, Martin Luther King Jr., Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Jesse Jackson, Clarence Thomas, and Barack Obama. From American RadioWorks.

 

SNCC 1960-1966

http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc 

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee concerned itself with issues of violence, the conflict in Vietnam, white liberalism, Black power, and feminism.  Learn here about its illustrious early years. 

 

The Black List: Suggested Readings in African-American History 

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article141507489.html

List of suggested reading for African-American history published by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald.

 

Today in Black History

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/K-12/Today_B_History.html 

Day by day calendar of events in African American history.

 

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database

http://www.slavevoyages.org
Emory University created this database of nearly 36,000 forced transports of some ten million Africans. Included are ship and captain names along with voyage origins and destinations. Maps show ship courses, trade, crops, and ocean currents.  Also available for known Africans are their age, height, and gender.  Provided too are some images and original maps.

 

Tulsa Race Massacre

http://www.okhistory.org/research/forms/freport.pdf

The official report of the destruction of a thriving African American community prepared by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.

 

Spartacus Educational: Slavery in the USA

http://spartacus-educational.com/USAslavery.htm

Accounts by enslaved people, daily life, the slave system, uprisings and other events, abolition efforts, and related material are discussed in thorough detail. Also includes British information. 

 

 

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