Research Guides: Center for African and African American Studies Research Guide: Current & Historical Perspectives

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Sources for Current & Historical Perspectives

The resources listed here bring together different source types (newspapers, government documents, archival materials, etc.) from various current and historical perspectives including those of Africans, Black Americans, media outlets, and U.S. and British and colonial government agencies. These resources are primarily subscriptions to content accessible by CU affiliates through CU Libraries using an Identikey.

Current & Historical Perspectives

African American Newspapers (1827-1998) (Readex)
This collection features 280 newspapers published for or by African Americans, and includes many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 (Readex)
This collection features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations bulletins, annual reports and other genres.
African American Newspapers (History Commons)

Collection containing African American newspapers published during the 19th century.
Black Life in America (NewsBank)

This collection covers the experience and impact of Black Americans as recorded by the news media.
ProQuest Black Studies
Collection of primary and secondary sources, including major newspapers like the Chicago Defender, that record and illuminate the Black experience, from ancient Africa through modern times. Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience is features in the collection.
Black Thought and Culture (Alexander Street)
Includes the works of Black American leaders in a wide range of disciplines.
Alternative Press Index (EBSCO)

Database of journal, newspaper and magazine articlesfrom hundreds of international alternative, radical and left periodicals. Covers 1991-present. For 1969-1990, see Alternative Press Index Archive.
Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest)
Periodicals of ethnic and minority presses. Articles written primarily by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian & Pacific Islander, and Jewish people.
Access World News Research Collection (NewsBank)

Online access to major national and international newspapers, as well as local and regional titles. Also includes newswires, blogs, web-only content, videos, journals, magazines, transcripts and more.
New York Times (ProQuest)

Archive of the New York Times from the first issue to the present.
Washington Post
Access to international and national newspapers, plus television and radio news transcripts.

Chicago Defender
Our coverage of the Chicago Defender, an important historical and current Black newspaper, comes from multiple online databases and sources, including microfilm coverage for some years, beginning in 1909 through the present.
Pittsburgh Courier, Current Coverage
Our coverage of the New Pittsburgh Courier, an important historical and current Black newspaper, comes from multiple online databases and sources, with electronic coverage from 1991 to the present.
Pittsburgh Courier, Historical Coverage
Our coverage of the Pittsburgh Courier, an important historical and current Black newspaper, comes from multiple online databases and sources, including microfilm coverage for some years.

Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876 (Readex)
Collection of fully searchable 18th- and 19th-century Caribbean newspapers.

World Newspaper Archive, African Newspapers
Newspaper titles from Africa ranging across academic disciplines. Includes 19th and 20th-century newspapers.

Activism, Civil Rights, Government Records

CU Archives Black Student Alliance Collection
The Black Student Alliance collection is comprised of materials that date from 1968 through 1998, including the social and financial data of the organization, programs and resources for incoming African American CU students, intermittent BSA publications on political and racial issues, and events sponsored by the BSA. Highlights include a pamphlet of the Black Student Alliance’s constitution, a list of demands to CU administration regarding the Univeristy's response to an anti-racism protest, and a powerful essay of racial profiling and harassment of a Black CU student by Boulder police in the wake of the Rodney King beating. Many of the BSA publications include original art and writings by students, which capture the political energy and racial agency of BSA members at CU.

African-American Biographical Database (ProQuest)
Biographies, rare books, and historical information on more than 30,000 Black and African Americans.
African American Communities (Adam Matthew)
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St Louis, Brooklyn, and towns and cities in North Carolina this collection presents multiple aspects of the Black community through personal diaries and scrapbooks, pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records and in-depth oral histories.
African American Police League Records (ProQuest)
This collection documents how beginning in 1968, Black policemen in Chicago attempted to fight against discrimination and police brutality by the Chicago Police Department and to improve relations between the Black population and police department. Dates: 1961-1988.
Black Abolitionist Papers (ProQuest)
Primary source collection that details the extensive work of Black Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War.
Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League (Gale)
The National Negro Business League was a business organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900 by Booker T. Washington, with the support of Andrew Carnegie. This collection contains documents related to its founding and early years.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records (History Vault)

Collection of records from federal government agencies about Black Americans in the 1900s.
Civil Rights and Social Activism in Alabama: The Papers of John LeFlore, 1926-1976 and Records of the Non-Partisan Voters League, 1956-1987 (Gale)
This collection features the papers of John L. LeFlore (19031976), a significant figure in the struggle for black equality. Materials in the collection document LeFlore's prolific work in both public and private life. The collection also holds the papers of the Non-Partisan Voters League, which was organized in Mobile, Alabama.
Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files, 1960-1969 (History Vault)
Collection of Central Files from the U.S. State Department from 1960-1969, covering Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activist, Political Activist, and Woman (Gale)
The Fannie Lou Hamer collection contains more than three thousand pieces of correspondence as well as financial records, programs, photographs, newspaper articles, invitations, and other papers.
FBI Confidential Files and Radical Politics in the U.S., 1945-1972 (History Vault)

Includes J. Edgar Hoover's office files, records of the Subversive Activities Control Board, and FBI documentation on tracking of communist groups and radical organizations.
Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984 (Gale)
This archive is based on original microfilm. It contains FBI reports on surveillance and investigation of Black Americans.
Fight for Racial Justice and the Civil Rights Congress (Gale)
The records in this collection represent the files of the national office of the Civil Rights Congress. They include case files; publications produced and received by the Congress; files of the Literature Department; Executive Director William Pattersons correspondence files; and national correspondence; and files of the New York headquarters of the Communist Party of the United States of America.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters (Adam Matthew)
Archival collection that captures the lives, experiences and colonial encounters of people living at the edges of the Anglophone world from 1650-1920. It ranges across the various colonial frontiers of North America before touching on the settlers of Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Legal Battle for Civil Rights in Alabama: Vernon Z. Crawford Records, 1958-1978 Civil Rights Cases and Selections from the Blacksher, Menefee & Stein Records (Gale)
This collection consists of selected portions of the records of attorney Vernon Z. Crawford (19191986) and the Blacksher, Menefee and Stein law firm whose work represents a significant contribution to the shape of the civil rights movement in 20th century Alabama.
Race Relations in America (Adam Matthew)
Speeches, reports, surveys and analyses from the Race Relations Department based at Fisk University from 1943-1970.
Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement (Gale)
This collection contains transcriptions of close to 700 interviews with those who made history in the struggles for voting rights, against discrimination in housing, for the desegregation of the schools, to expose racism in hiring, in defiance of police brutality, and to address poverty in the African American communities.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice (Adam Matthew)
Primary source documents relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice.
Slavery and the Law Digital Archive (History Vault)

Collection featuring petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867.
U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Little Rock Integration Crisis, 1957-1958 (Gale)
This publication covers President Eisenhower's use of Federal troops and the Arkansas National Guard in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957 -1958.
U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Military Response to the March on Washington, 1963 (Gale)
This collection reveals details of the Federal Government's plans to militarily intervene in the 1963 March on Washington (codenamed Operation "Steep Hill") in the event the march became disorderly. These records give an insight into the personalities and events at the March on Washington. In addition, there is small quantity of records relating to the plans to intervene in Alabama in 1963 over the issue of school integration.

Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Enforcement of Federal Law in the South, 1871-1884
This collection documents the efforts of district attorneys from southern states to uphold federal laws in the states that fought in the Confederacy or were Border States. It includes correspondence of the attorney general as well as that of marshals, judges, convicts, and concerned or aggrieved citizens.

European Colonialism Early 20th Century: French Colonialism Africa: Algeria To Madagascar, 1910-1930 (Gale)
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
European Colonialism Early 20th Century: German Colonies League of Nations Mandates in Africa 1910-1929 (Gale)
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
European Colonialism Early 20th Century: Political and Economic Consolidation of Portuguese Colonies in Africa, 1910-1929 (Gale)
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
European Colonialism in the Early 20th Century: Italian Colonies In North Africa And Aggression In East Africa, 1930-1939 (Gale)
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters (Adam Matthew)
Archival collection that captures the lives, experiences and colonial encounters of people living at the edges of the Anglophone world from 1650-1920. It ranges across the various colonial frontiers of North America before touching on the settlers of Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Liberia and the U.S.: Nation-Building in Africa, 1864-1918 (Gale)
This series consists of correspondence and telegrams received and sent by the United States diplomatic post in Liberia. The topics covered by these records include all aspects of relations with Liberia, and interactions of American citizens with the Liberian government and people.
Empire Online (Adam Matthew)
Manuscripts and printed materials covering Africa, the Americas, Australasia, Oceania, and South Asia, from 1492 to 1962.
Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980 (Adam Matthew)
Apartheid South Africa makes available British government files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 (Adam Matthew)
Important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices in Britain.