Library Research Guides: AFRICANA STUDIES: Primary Sources & Portals

Primary Sources

HistoryMakers Digital Archive

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.

Umbra Search
Nearly a million digital African American archival items, made possible by the University of Minnesota Libraries
Digital Schomburg
Substantial online collections on the "global black experience," from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.
African American Collections from the Library of Congress
Pamphlets, photos, music recordings, legal documents, maps, papers & more.
Nelson Mandela Foundation Archive
Archival guide to handwritten papers, official records and unique artefacts from the personal archive of Nelson Mandela in addition to records from the Office of Nelson Mandela after his retirement as President of South Africa in 1999, and the records of related significant organisations and individuals. Includes digitized materials accessible through the Digital Objects link
African Activist Archive
Hosted at the Michigan State University, this digital archive is "preserving and making available online the records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s." Includes pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, T-shirts, photographs, and audio and video recordings.

Center for Africana Studies
University of Pennsylvania. This is a portal to many topics.
Schomburg resources/Library of Congress
More from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, via the Library of Congress
African Studies
Another portal of useful links - Columbia University
African-American History at the National Archives
Links to primary resources at the National Archives and beyond.
African History on the Internet
By Karen Fung, Curator, African Collection, Stanford University.