New Resources for Black History Month: Exploring Historical Voices
February is Black History Month, and the GSU Library has plenty of resources for you showing black history in the making… newspapers, papers, diaries, letters containing the real voices of real African-Americans throughout history.
You may already know that we have just added two new African-American historical newspaper databases to our collection:
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Defender (1910-1975)
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003)
We also have a significant collection of nineteenth-century African-American newspapers available online via our Accessible Archives database, including:
- The Christian Recorder (Philadelphia, PA)
- The Colored American (a continuation of The Weekly Advocate, New York, NY)
- Frederick Douglass Paper (Rochester, NY)
- The National Era (Washington, DC)
- The Provincial Freeman (Chatham, Canada West)
Additionally, the The AFRO-American Newspapers, news providers for the Baltimore/Washington, DC African-American community, has just announced that they have partnered with Google to create the AFRO Archives. The AFRO Archives is a digital archive of AFRO-American newspapers covering over a hundred years of history, and will continue to expand to include additional archived AFRO editions, now being processed. This collection is searchable and freely available to the public—no off-campus sign-in necessary!
Another great online source for historical and cultural documents is the GSU Library’s Black Thought and Culture database. Containing non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—and covering 250 years of history, Black Thought and Culture is full of rich historical voices.
There are also many books in our collection that will let you “hear” (or at least read) the voices of African-Americans in history. These books have just arrived on our shelves:
- Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky: A Narrative by Francis Fredric, Escaped Slave, by Francis Frederick, edited by C. L. Innes (originally published in 1863)
- Women’s Work: An Anthology of African-American Women’s Historical Writings from Antebellum America to the Harlem Renaissance, edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Kathryn Lofton
- The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is, edited by Maegan Parker Brooks and Davis W. Houck
Also, our video collection also has a number of resources featuring the actual voices and presence of African-Americans in history, including (but not limited to):
- Voices of Civil Rights, an A&E/History Channel documentary series (2005)
- Minds That Matter: John Lewis, an hour-long interview with Rep. John Lewis
- Martin Luther King: “I have a dream,” including King’s entire speech and footage of other civil-rights struggles and protests during the 1960s.
Stay tuned for more information about great books about Black History.