African American History: Web Resources

Research guide by the Library of Virginia on researching African American history pre-1870.

An extensive bibliography of sources about slavery in Virginia containing information for books, archives, websites, articles and more.

"Located in Hampton, Virginia, in the heart of the historic Hampton University campus, the Hampton University Museum is a unique institution and a national treasure. Founded in 1868, the Museum is the oldest African American museum in the United States and one of the oldest museums in the state of Virginia. --Hampton University Museum

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War.

Digital sources from libraries, museums, and archives including: photos, manuscripts, documents, books, sound and video.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database has information on more than 35,000 slave voyages that forcibly embarked over 12 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It offers researchers, students and the general public a chance to rediscover the reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history. -- Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 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 of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. --Library of Congress

"A selection of 100 recorded oral history interviews chronicling African-American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s." Includes nine interviews from Norfolk, Virginia.

Research and links to the National Archives' African American collection.

A list of useful website links created by the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African American Culture.

Smithsonian Institute museum in Washington, D.C.

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture located in Harlem, New York is a research unit of The New York Public Library system. It is recognized as one of the leading institutions focusing exclusively on African-American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. --NYPL

African American World includes four timelines: Early days & slavery, Building Democracy, and Modern Times.

A list of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

This website accompanies the four-part series PBS video "The rise and fall of Jim Crow." You'll find a timeline, narratives, interactive activities and more.

Produced by Ohio Historical Society, provides overview of daily life between 1850 - 1920. Manuscripts, newspapers, pamphlets, and photos.

Diaries, photos, and manuscripts, all searchable and browesable.

First African American owned and run newspaper in US, 1827 - 1829.

from the Library of Congress

An online reference center makes available a wealth of materials on African American history in one central location on the Internet.

Online African American video oral history project.