"From communal struggle to creative outpourings: uncover the everyday lives of African Americans spanning two turbulent centuries. A diverse range of primary source material is showcased in this collection that focuses on race relations across social, political, cultural and religious arenas. Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, Brooklyn, and towns and cities in North Carolina this collection presents multiple aspects of the African American community. Through pamphlets, periodicals, correspondence, official records and in-depth oral histories, it reveals the challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and the expressions of a unique African American culture and identity."

A database of modern and contemporary African American poetry, featuring thousands of poems by some of the most important African American poets between 1750 and 1900.

Contains more than 12,000 printed works; books, pamphlets and broadsides from the Library Company’s Afro-Americana Collection.

Includes full texts of plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 100 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. The plays are fully searchable and extensively indexed.

The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground, black nationalist-Marxist militant organization that operated from 1970 to 1981. Composed largely of former Black Panthers (BPP), the organization's program was one of “armed struggle” and its stated goal was to “take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States.”Sourced from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Library, Black Liberation Army and the Program of Armed Struggle consists of a wide range of materials, including FBI surveillance and informant reports and correspondence from a variety of offices including, New York City, Baltimore, New Haven, San Francisco, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, Newark, Kansas City, and Cleveland; intercepted correspondence; Justice Department memoranda, correspondence and analyses; newsclippings and articles; and more.

This collection of RAM records reproduces the writings and statements of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and its leaders. It also covers organizations that evolved from or were influenced by RAM and persons that had close ties to RAM. The most prominent organization that evolved from RAM was the African People’s Party. Organizations influenced by RAM include the Black Panther Party, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Youth Organization for Black Unity, African Liberation Support Committee, and the Republic of New Africa. Individuals associated with RAM and documented in this collection include Robert F. Williams, Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, General Gordon Baker Jr., Yuri Kochiyama, Donald Freeman, James and Grace Lee Boggs, Herman Ferguson, Askia Muhammad Toure (Rolland Snellings), and Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael).

"Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts. The ideas of over 1,000 authors present an evolving and complex view of what it is to be black in America."

"Black Women Writers presents 100,000 pages of literature and essays on feminist issues, written by authors from Africa and the African diaspora. Facing both sexism and racism, black women needed to create their own identities and movements. The collection documents that effort, presenting the woman’s perspective on the diversity and development of black people generally, and in particular the works document the evolution of black feminism."

Fannie Lou Hamer was an voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant activist of civil rights.

On November 3, 1979 a rally and march of black industrial workers and Communists was planned in Greensboro, North Carolina against the Ku Klux Klan. The "Death to the Klan March" was to begin in a predominantly black housing project called Morningside Homes. Communist organizers publicly challenged the Klan to present themselves and "face the wrath of the people". During the rally, a caravan of cars containing Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party drove by the housing projects where the Communists and other anti-Klan activists were congregating. What then occurred is in dispute, from rock-throwing and taunts on both sides to the sound of gunfire and deaths of five protest marchers. This collection of FBI, local and state police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, shed new light on the motivations of the Communist organizers, the shootings, subsequent investigations, and efforts to heal the Greensboro community.

Digital collection of documents related to FBI investigations of those deemed politically suspect. This collection includes FBI files relating to: A. Philip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell, the Atlanta Child Murders (ATKID), the Black Panther Party, North Carolina, COINTELPRO: Black Nationalist "Hate" Groups, the Committee for Public Justice, Elijah Muhammed, the Highlander Folk School, the Klu Klux Klan Murder of Viola Liuzzo, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, MIBURN (Mississippi Burning), Muslim Mosque, Inc., the NAACP, the National Negro Congress, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Paul Robeson, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Roy Wilkins, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. Du Bois

Primary source documents including records from civil rights activists and organizations (Southern Christian Leadership Council, NAACP, Revolutionary Action Movement). Other collections include; Law and Society Since the Civil War; Slavery and the Law (petitions to southern legislatures and courts and slavery statutes); Southern Life and African-American History, 1775-1915 (diaries, account books and other records of daily life); The Struggle for Women's Rights, 1880-1990 (records of the National Woman's Party, the League of Women Voters, and the Women's Action Alliance); Women's Studies Manuscript Collections from The Schlesinger Library; The Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy, 1960-1975, and Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1880-1930.

The Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists is a compact but highly complex, multi-layered compilation of documents, sound recordings, and visual images.

This collection of Amiri Baraka materials was made available by Dr. Komozi Woodard. Dr. Woodard collected these documents during his career as an activist in Newark, New Jersey. The collection consists of rare works of poetry, organizational records, print publications, over one hundred articles, poems, plays, and speeches by Baraka, a small amount of personal correspondence, and oral histories. The collection has been arranged into eighteen series. These series are: Black Arts Movement; Black Nationalism; Correspondence; Newark (New Jersey); Congress of African People; National Black Conferences and National Black Assembly; Black Women’s United Front; Student Organization for Black Unity; African Liberation Support Committee; Revolutionary Communist League; African Socialism; Black Marxists; National Black United Front; Miscellaneous Materials, 1978-1988; Serial Publications; Oral Histories; Woodard’s Office Files.

Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict. Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.

A massive digital collection of 18th and 19th century documents; Pamphlets, Books, Correspondence, Newspapers, Legal Documents, Manuscripts, and other materials. Includes over 1 million pages of unpublished archival material produced by pro and anti-slavery organizations and individuals.

Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice. In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography.

A database of modern and contemporary African American poetry, featuring almost 9,000 poems by 62 of the most important African American poets of the last century, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde and Rita Dove.