Library Research Guides: AFR 243: The Black Church: Find Primary Sources

Find Primary Sources in SuperSearch

You can find some primary sources through SuperSearch, but don't stop there, or you'll miss a lot of materials that are accessible to you through the library and beyond. SuperSearch does not include materials from several of our historical newspaper databases and other primary source collections.

Try a search in SuperSearch, then use the filters under Refine Results to narrow your search. The Publication Date filter allows you to focus on sources created during a particular time period. You can also filter by Source Type, such as newspaper articles. If you're searching for images, use the filter Non-Print Resources.

Primary Sources

Umbra Search
Nearly a million digital African American archival items, made possible by the University of Minnesota Libraries

Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
Primary sources documenting slavery and abolition, including court records, slavery testimonies, pamphlets, books, maps, and more. Areas of focus include the African coast, the Middle Passage, slavery and the Islamic world, spiritualism and religion, resistance and the Underground Railroad, free Black settlements.
Dates: 1490-2007 CE
Race Relations in America This link opens in a new window
A primary source archive of photographs, sound recordings, transcripts, interviews, administrative reports, and statistics on topics such as housing, employment, the labor movement, school desegregation and church integration.
Dates: 1943-1970 CE
African American Communities This link opens in a new window
Focusing primarily on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and North Carolina, this resource documents multiple aspects of African American communities through pamphlets, news, letters, photos, maps, and oral histories. Themes include arts and culture, civil rights and Black power, education, policing, and faith and religion.
Dates: 1810-2011 CE

Civil Rights Digital Library
Links to dozens of external archives on the Civil Rights Movement.
Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South
100 oral history interviews chronicling African American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950
North American Slave Narratives
UNC Library
Slave Voyages
Searchable and sortable databases of the Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American slave trades as well as the names of African people taken into captivity. Users can sort data on point of departure, gender, slave ship captain, and many many more variables. Site includes image galleries that contextualize data with historical maps, ship manifests, drawings, and more.
Digital Library on American Slavery
Primary sources including deeds, insurance registries, petitions, and runaway ads.

Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Thousands of articles by scholars focused on the lives and events that have shaped African American and African history and culture, along with primary source documents, encyclopedias, and biographies.

Early Americas Digital Archive
The Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA) is a collection of electronic texts and links to texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.
Confederate States of America Records
The records of the Confederate States of America span the years 1854-1889, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1861-1865, during the Civil War in America. The collection relates to the formation of the government of the Confederacy and the conduct of its internal, external, and military affairs.
African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
Web displays of manuscripts and early printed works about the lives of African Americans in Massachusetts from the late 17th century through the abolition of slavery in the state in 1780.
Free People of Color in Louisiana
Digital records from several collections of personal and family papers on free people of color in Louisiana, with a focus on the 19th century.

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA)
Survey-driven data about US and international congregational membership, denominational breakdowns, and more. Includes basic GIS capabilities and some encyclopedic information with visualizations.
African-American Religion: A Documentary History Project
There are primary sources tucked away in this website - reprinted articles, diary entries, and so on.
Religious Content: North American Slave Narratives
"Slave narratives document the gamut of their religious experience and practice. The narratives reveal the duality of black religious experience: the white-controlled message and practice, and the "invisible institution" the slave community established across the South embodying its own religious ideals and aspirations. "
The Church in the Southern Black Community
""The Church in the Southern Black Community" collects autobiographies, biographies, church documents, sermons, histories, encyclopedias, and other published materials."

Through the Storm, Through the Night
Provides 36 pages of primary source documents on the Black church at the back of the book.

Public Religion Research Institute
"PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy."

Website includes data downloads, summaries, and visualization of findings.
The Pew Forum
The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life seeks to promote a deeper understanding of issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. The Forum conducts surveys, demographic analyses, and other social science research on important aspects of religion and public life.
The Negro Church, WEB DuBois
A DuBois-edited 1903 publication of a sociological study of the Black church.

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Enormous historical map collection searchable by keyword, geographic area, subject, and time period.
Perry Castañeda Library Map Collection
Over 44,000 map images of the Library's 250,000 map collection have been scanned. From the University of Texas.
Civil War Collection, Library of Congress
Explore the faces, places and events of the U.S. Civil War through photographs, prints and drawings. The Prints & Photographs Division holds thousands of images relating to the Civil War, found in many different collections. This category allows research across those collections.

Painting the Gospel
"Innovative and lavishly illustrated, Painting the Gospel offers an indispensable contribution to conversations about African American art, theology, politics, and identity in Chicago. "

Digital Schomburg
34 images tagged with religion in a collection of images of 19th Century African-Americans.

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Full-text of 282 Black American newspapers.
Dates: 1827-1998 CE

AME Church Review
17 issues of an AME quarterly publication. Includes articles on politics, religion, history, and world current events.
The Informer: Ohio
A predominantly Baptist religious and educational monthly magazine from 1902-1920.
Library of Congress: African American Newspapers
Browse issues of African American newspapers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971 This link opens in a new window
More than 130 newspapers published by and for American ethnic groups, with German-American, Irish-American, and Japanese-American papers forming the bulk. English language news is predominant.
Dates: 1799-1971 CE
Chicago Defender, 1909-1975 This link opens in a new window
The full text of one of America's biggest African-American newspapers. Browsable by article type (obituary, editorial, etc).
Dates: 1909-1975 CE

Black Press Research Collective Resources
Links to digitized black newspapers online, predominantly 20th century.
Black Quotidian: Everyday Life in African-American Newspapers

Now What a Time: Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938 to 1943
This collection from the Library of Congress contains approximately one hundred digitized sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, from what may be the first folk festival organized entirely by and for African Americans.
Songs of America: Ritual & Worship
Sections on Spirituals and African American Gospel include audio recordings and images from the Library of Congress collections.

Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Audio streaming service for Western art music from the middle ages to the present.
Naxos allows a limited number of simultaneous users. Please select [🡒 Log Out at the top left of the screen when you are finished.