For more primary source collections, see the Primary Sources: History research guide.
A growing collection of nearly 3,000 oral history video interviews with both well-known and unsung African Americans, highlighting the history, lives, careers, and accomplishments of African Americans across a wide variety of fields.
The following collections are part of AM Explorer, a large database of primary source collections from Adam Matthew Digital. A Wellesley login is required.
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
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
Primary sources tracking forms of colonialism, empire, and imperialism, from the explorations of Columbus to recent decolonization, with an emphasis on the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Dates: 1482-2003 CE
Broad range of primary sources exploring the history of fifteen major commodities: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, and wine and spirits, but other food and textile commodities are also included. Materials include maps, photographs, advertisements, paintings, statistics, and more.
Dates: 1500 CE-Present
Audio and video recordings, field notebooks, and journals documenting music from Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific islands, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.
Full-text of 282 Black American newspapers.
Dates: 1827-1998 CE
Full text of more than 170 wide-ranging publications by and about African Americans, including academic journals, magazines, newsletters, reports, and other genres.
Dates: 1825-1997 CE
The full text of one of America's biggest African-American newspapers. Browsable by article type (obituary, editorial, etc).
Dates: 1909-1975 CE
A full-text primary source archive of the New York Amsterdam News, an African-American newspaper. Articles, editorials, and images that chronical the cultural, social, and political developments within Black communities in New York City and beyond during the 20th century.
Dates: 1922-1993 CE
Full-text historical news articles in major American and British newspapers, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and more.
Dates: 1791-2003 CE
Full text of more than 60 newspapers from across Africa, in English and other languages.
Dates: 1800-1922 CE
Full text of alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals, produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press, and alternative literary magazines.
Dates: 1950-2023 CE
Full text newspapers, magazines, and journals from ethnic, minority and Native presses. Filter by ethnic group and language.
Dates: 1960 CE-Present