In Motion:  The African-American Immigration Experience:  From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Images, maps and text detailing the “thirteen defining migrations that have formed and transformed African American and the nation.” PRIMARY SOURCES.

National Museum of African American History & Culture:  From the Smithsonian Institute. Information on slavery and segregation, civil rights, music, clothing and dress, literature, religious groups, military, education and more. PRIMARY SOURCES.

African Americans in the U.S. Army: from the U.S. Army Center for Military History. Biographies, military units, medal of honor recipiants,photographs, artwork and the book FREEDOM BY THE SWORD THE U.S. COLORED TROOPS, 1862–1867 by William A. Doback available for download.

The African-American Mosaic:  A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History & Culture. Sections include Colonization, Abolition, Migration and WPA. Personal stories, images, migration patterns, art and more. PRIMARY SOURCES.

Africans in America: From PBS, “America’s journey through slavery.” The Terrible Transformation 1450-1750, Revolution 1750-1805, Brotherly Love 1791-1831, Judgement day 1831-1865. Historical documents and images, modern analysis, people and events, PRIMARY SOURCES.

Birmingham Children's March: Cynthia Levinson’s acclaimed book We’ve Got a Job relives the Birmingham, Alabama Children’s Civil Rights March. “From May 2 to May 7, 1963, between 3,000 and 4,000 children marched to protest segregation and get arrested and jailed.” Includes information about the major players, segregation and government issues, Project C plans for the march, day by day synopsis and aftereffects. 

Black History and Culture - from the Google Cultural Institute:  Inspirational figures, slavery to civil rights, virtual tours of key locations in the civil rights movement, video of defining moments in civil rights history, African-American art, artifacts, black music, pop culture and more. PRIMARY SOURCES.  

The Black Inventor Online Museum:  “Focusing on the ingenuity and accomplishments of the top black inventors over the last 300 years.” Caution:  Advertising

Blacks in the Military: from the National Archives Military Resources. Experiences of African- American men and women soldiers. segregation, civil rights, integration, soldiers & sailors database, timelines and more.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938:  From the Library of Congress, “contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.  These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA).” PRIMARY SOURCES. 
 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom:  From segregation to the immediate impact after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, images, video, timelines and information from the Library of Congress. PRIMARY SOURCES.

Drop Me Off in Harlem:  From the Kennedy Center, “discover the themes and works that emerged when creative and intellectual voices intersected during the Harlem Renaissance.” PRIMARY SOURCES.

Frederick Douglass Heritage:  Biography, information about the Abolitionist Activities, speeches and publications (including Free-e book links), reconstruction, historical landmarks, timeline, videos and more. From the University of Massachusetts History Club. Caution:  Advertising

Freedom Riders:  From PBS and award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson “is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives by deliberately violating Jim Crow laws in order to test and challenge a segregated interstate travel system. Based on Raymond Arsenault's book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.”

The Ghosts of 1898: Wilmington's Race Riot and the Rise of White Supremacy. "Occurring only two years after the Supreme Court had sanctioned “separate but equal” segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, the riot marked the embrace of virulent Jim Crow racism, not merely in Wilmington, but across the United States."

When White Supremacists Overthrew a Government. The Wilmington massacre of 1898. The hidden history of a North Carolina coup.

By Ranjani Chakraborty.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:  American history from early America to the present. From slavery to reconstruction, migration, civil rights and the new millennium. Interactive exhibits, multimedia, images, essays, timelines and more. Click on BROWSE BY, TIME PERIOD and then select the era you are interested in discovering. PRIMARY SOURCES.  

Harriet Tubman Historical Society:  Biography, information about the Underground Railroad, timeline, videos and more. From the University of Massachusetts History Club. Caution:  Advertising

“I will be heard!” Abolitionism in America:  Articles, images, and narratives including Origins of Abolitionism, A Slave's Life, Prominent Abolitionists, Black Resistance, Abolitionist Strategies and more. From Cornell University Library. PRIMARY SOURCES.  

International Civil Rights Center & Museum:  The Greensboro Chronology:  Timeline, biographies of participants, images and more. Civil rights. 

Map of the United States, designed to exhibit the comparative area of the free and slave states and the territory open to slavery or freedom by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1850:  From the Library of Congress. PRIMARY SOURCE. 
 

Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the southern states of the United States. Compiled from the census of 1860:  From the Library of Congress. PRIMARY SOURCE. 

Mapping the spread of American slavery:  Amazing interactive maps using U.S. Census records that illustrate the spread, density and population percentages of U.S. slavery from 1790-1860 and total U.S. free persons and free African-Americans. From Lincoln Mullen, "The Spread of U.S. Slavery, 1790–1860,". Scroll down the page to view.

Map of 1950 African-American Population Distribution By County:  From the Library of Congress. PRIMARY SOURCE.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University:  MLK encyclopedia, speeches, chronology, primary documents, quotes and more. Civil rights and PRIMARY SOURCES. 

NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom:  From the founding of the NAACP, the Great Depression, WWII, the Civil Rights Era to the present, images, video, and information from the Library of Congress. PRIMARY SOURCES.   

Nation Underground Railroad Network to Freedom: From the National Park Service. Images, glosssary of underground railroad and historical terms, videos and more.

North American Slave Narratives: Documenting the American South:  “Collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of African Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries.” From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. PRIMARY SOURCES.
 

ourdocuments.gov: 100 milestone documents of American history:  View original documents, transcripts and document information including The Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850 (Fugitive Slave Law), Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, Emancipation Proclamation, Civil Rights Act and more. PRIMARY SOURCES. 

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow:  From PBS. Timelines, narratives, events, and interactive maps. Videos, photos and PRIMARY SOURCES.  

Slave Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database:  Multiple maps, essays, and images illustrating the history of the African slave trade including volume and direction, disembarkment locations, tables showing ships country of transport and number of slaves and more. PRIMARY SOURCES.

Slavery and Remembrance:  “A jointly sponsored initiative between UNESCO’s Slave Route Project and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation...with issues relating to slavery, the slave trade, and ways in which both are remembered today throughout the Atlantic world.” PRIMARY SOURCES. 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture:  From the University of Virginia. Abolitionism, slave narratives, pro-slavery responses, images, newspaper commentaries, full text of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, music from the novel and more. PRIMARY SOURCES.
 

Website created by L.G. Buschmann 8/01/2017 & updated 7/7/2020.