CMU LibGuides: African American History: Primary Sources: Collections, Papers, and Diaries

Collections, Papers, and Diaries

1964 Freedom Summer Project
One of the nation's richest collections of Civil Rights movement records, including more than 100 manuscript collections on Freedom Summer

20th Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Gender, Sex and the Family This link opens in a new window
Search the full-text of handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books describing American attitudes towards family dynamics, gender roles, sexual relationships, and race relations.

African American Communities
This collection presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity. Also featured is a rich selection of visual material, including photographs, maps and ephemera.
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
African-American Experience in Ohio 1850-1920
Digitized collection of newspaper articles, photographs, serials, pamphlets, local government records, and manuscript materials which traces Ohio African American history from pre-Civil War abolition efforts through the Civil War and post-war reconstruction years to the political and religious activism of the early 20th century.

African Diaspora: 1860-Present This link opens in a new window
"The collection includes 70,000 pages of never-before digitized primary documents, including personal papers, organizational papers, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera from the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France. On completion, The African Diaspora, 1860-Present will include 100,000 pages of international primary and secondary source documents, and 50 hours of video, curated for the Black Studies, African American History, and World History scholar." - web site. Database Guide

Africans in the New World, 1493-1834 [microform]: from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
HUNT MFILM-3 973.0496073 A2586
Antislavery Pamphlet Collection 1725-1911
Contains several hundred printed pamphlets and books pertaining to slavery and antislavery in New England, 1725-1911. The holdings include speeches, sermons, proceedings and other publications of organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society and the American Colonization Society, and a small number of pro-slavery tracts.

Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Topically-focused digital collections of historical documents. Currently the Libraries offer 27 collections, 23 of which focus on African American History:
Grassroots Civil Rights & Social Activism: FBI Files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr.
Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement
The Southern Negro Youth Congress and the Communist Party: Papers of James and Esther Cooper Jackson
The Papers of Amiri Baraka, Poet Laureate of the Black Power Movement
Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activitist, Political Activist, and Woman
The Greensboro Massacre, 1979: Shootout between the American Nazis and the Communist Workers Party
The Quest for Labor Equality in Household Work: National Domestic Workers Union, 1965-1979
FBI Surveillance of James Forman and SNCC
Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League
The Black Liberation Army and the Program of Armed Struggle
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Race Relations, 1933-1945
Liberation Movement in Africa and African America
The Republic of New Afrika
Fight for Racial Justice and the Civil Rights Congress
Integration of Alabama Schools and the U.S. Military, 1963
African America, Communists, and the National Negro Congress, 1933-1947
Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984
Rastafari Ephemeral Publications from the Written Rastafari Archives Project
James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Integration of the University of MississippiV
The Bush Presidency and Development and Debate Over Civil Rights Policy and LegislationV
Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement: The Papers of Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford)
""We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death:"" Freedom Riders in the South, 1961
Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window
Primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865. The content includes letters, speeches, editorials, articles, sermons, and essays from libraries and archives in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States.

Black Abolitionist Papers
HUNT STACKS-2 E449 .B624 1985 v. 1-5
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records
Major collections in this module include the FBI Files on Martin Luther King Jr.; Centers of the Southern Struggle, an exceptional collection of FBI Files covering five of the most pivotal arenas of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s: Montgomery, Albany, St. Augustine, Selma, and Memphis; and records from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, detailing the interaction between civil rights leaders and organizations and the highest levels of the federal government. This module also contains important documentation that shows the longer arc of the freedom struggle both before and after the highpoint of the post-World War II civil rights movement. These topics include forced labor in the first half of the 20th century (in Peonage Files of the U.S. Department of Justice, 1901-1945); migration of African Americans to urban areas that began during World War I; East St. Louis riot of 1917; Scottsboro Boys case and campaigns for the passage of anti-lynching legislation; heroic combat record of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II; and President Truman's Committee on Civil Rights
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records, Supplement
The Ford administration records in this module consist of the subject files of J. Stanley Pottinger, who was the assistant attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, which enforced civil rights laws, and the subject files of Anne R. Clarke, who was a special assistant in the Research Unit of the Civil Rights Division's Sex Discrimination Program. The files of Pottinger and Clarke detail the implementation of federal civil rights law from 1973 through 1977 and thus are an important complement to the other Black Freedom modules that focus on the campaigns that led to the passage of landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights of 1965. Records from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library consist of the White House Office of Records Management Subject File on Human Rights and seven collections released as a result of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The seven FOIA collections cover affirmative action; Bob Jones University; busing and school desegregation; civil rights; fair housing; Martin Luther King Jr. Day; and the Civil Rights Restoration Act, Grove City College, and the Voting Rights Act of 1982.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part I
The three major civil rights organizations are the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Papers of civil rights leaders included in this module are those of the civil rights and labor leader A. Philip Randolph; the long-time civil rights activist and organizer of the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, and the papers of the pioneering educator Mary McLeod Bethune. Through records of Claude A. Barnett's Associated Negro Press, this module also branches out to cover other aspects of African American life in the 20th century, like religion, sports, education, fraternal organizations, and even the field of entertainment.

Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 2. This link opens in a new window
This Black Freedom module is highlighted by the records of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Africa-related papers of Claude Barnett, and the Robert F. Williams Papers.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Search and display the full text of approximately 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present.

Black Women Oral History Project: From the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe College
Can also be requested from Offsite
Transcribed interviews with 61 African American women. The women interviewed represent a cross section of women of African descent born about fifteen years before and after 1900. Each volume has a name and subject index.
Black Workers In The Era Of The Great Migration, 1916-1929
Also: HUNT MFILM-3 331.63 B627 no.1-25 and Guide
The movement of southern blacks to northern industrial cities was called the Great Migration. Focusing on both migration and labor, this collection contains records relating to agricultural labor, industrial work, unionism, housing, race relations, returning veterans and their search for employment, and the process of migration from the South to the North. Record groups included are: National War Labor Board, U. S. Housing Corporation, National Mediation Board, U. S. Railroad Administration, U. S. Shipping Board, U. S. Coal Commission, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U. S. Women's Bureau, Department of War and U. S. Conciliation Services. Only those materials which explicitly mention Black workers, however, are included. The guide describes the contents of each reel, and includes a detailed subject index so that relevant material can easily be identified.
Booker T. Washington Papers
UNT STACKS-2 E185.97 .W274 v. 1-14
Brown, Homer S. Papers, 1918-1977.
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, ARCHIVES SERVICE CENTER-AIS MANUSCRIPTS AIS 78:8
Black lawyer, state legislator and judge prominent in Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh politics and government.
Centers of the Southern Struggle: FBI Files on Selma, Memphis, Montgomery, Albany, and St. Augustine
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service

Colonial State Papers (1574 - 1757) This link opens in a new window
Over 7,000 manuscript papers and 40,000 bibliographic records concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Database Guide

"Dear Master": Letters of a Slave Family
REQUEST FROM OFFSITE
Documenting the American South
A digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Documents on Slavery
Federal and state statutes, treaties, and other documents.
East St. Louis Race Riot of 1917
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
FBI file on the Black Panther Party, North Carolina
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
FBI File on the National Negro Congress
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
Federal Surveillance Of Afro-Americans, 1917-1925: The First World War, The Red Scare, And The Garvey Movement
Also: HUNT MFILM-3 305.896073 F293 no.1-25 and Guide
From 1917 to 1925 the Justice Department, and its Bureau of Investigation (later named the Federal Bureau of Investigation), along with other agencies of the federal government, investigated Americans who were Socialists, Communists, opponents of World War I, militant labor unionists, ethnic or racial nationalists, and outspoken opponents of the government. This collection includes the surveillance files on African American individuals (e.g. Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. DuBois, Jack Johnson, A. Philip Randolph), groups (e.g. NAACP, UNIA) and periodicals (e. g. Messsenger, Crisis, Chicago Defender, Baltimore Afro-American). The guide describes the contents of each reel, and includes a detailed subject index so that relevant material can easily be identified.
Frederick Douglass Papers
HUNT STACKS-2 E449 .D733
Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress
Search the papers by keyword, or browse by series.
Freedman's Bank Records
Request from Offsite
"Freedman's Bank was created to assist newly freed slaves during and after the American Civil War. Records cover approximately 1864-71 and document names and relationships of those who used the bank. Although the records contain limited genealogical information, they are a valuable source of family history information for those with African-American ancestry. This compact disc contains approximately 480,000 names in pedigree-linked GEDCOM format"--Insert.
Freedmen's Bureau Online
Transcribed marriage, labor, and murder and outrages documents from various states.
George A. Myers papers, 1890-1929
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
Green Books
From the Introduction to the 1949 edition: With the introduction of this travel guide in 1936, it has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trips more enjoyable.
Heartman Manuscript Collection at Xavier University Library, New Orleans: Manuscripts on Slavery
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
Documents in English, French and Spanish.
Correspondence, depositions, petitions, affidavits, licenses, ships' records, printed bonds, and other papers and records relating to freedmen and slaves in the southern states, chiefly New Orleans, La., and other areas of Louisiana.
In Motion: The African American Migration Experience
Texts, maps, images, etc. on 13 African-American migrations.
K. Leroy Irvis Papers, 1865-2007
Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
The papers of K. Leroy Irvis document the life of one of Pennsylvania’s most prominent politicians. The collection contains a wide variety of material including correspondence, legislative material, interviews, campaign literature, publications, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Areas of concentration in the collection include: the Pennsylvania Legislature, higher education, prison reform, housing, Pennsylvania history, senior citizens, National Democratic Conventions, the development of Pittsburgh’s African-American culture and history, mental health, civil rights, and Irvis’ relationship with his family and constituents.
Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass
HUNT STACKS-2 E449 .D736 v. 1-5
Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers
HUNT STACKS-2 E185 .97.G3 M36 1983 v. 1-10
Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project
Jacket text, introduction, and sample documents.
McKinney, Ernest Rice. Papers, 1929-1942.
Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
This collection is comprised of correspondence, newspaper clippings, a scrapbook and articles by McKinney, cartoons, and miscellaneous material ranging from publications to newsletters. Some of McKinney’s papers are located at Harvard University and an oral history was conducted at Columbia University.
Microfilm edition of the Detroit Urban League papers, 1916-1950, at the University of Michigan microform
University of Pittsburgh- ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service

NAACP Papers This link opens in a new window
Briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. It charts the NAACP's work and delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues. With a timeline that runs from 1909 to 1972, the NAACP Papers document the realities of segregation in the early 20th century to the triumphs of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and beyond.

New Deal Agencies and Black America in the 1930s
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
Papers of A. Philip Randolph
HUNT MFILM-3 305.896073 R19p no.1-35 and Guide
Once called "the most dangerous black in America," A. Philip Randolph was a labor leader, civil rights advocate, black activist and Socialist. Included in collection are: Family Papers; General Correspondence, 1926-1979, including that with members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, prominent American political figures, civil rights leaders and others; Subject File, 1901-1978, which covers a wide variety of topics including the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Committee to End Jim Crow in the Armed Forces, Fair Employment Practices Committee, March on Washington Movement, White House Conferences, and the Youth March for Integrated Schools; Speeches and Writings File, 1941-1978; Biographical File, 1945-1979, which includes articles and biographies about Randolph by a variety of authors; Miscellany File, 1920-1979, which are scrapbooks, one on the early efforts to organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, ...
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr
HUNT STACKS-2 E185 .97.K5 A2 1992 v. 1-6.
Papers of W. E. B. Du Bois: 1803 (1877-1963) 1965
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
Peonage Files of the U.S. Department Of Justice, 1901-1945
HUNT MFILM-3 306.363 P419 no.1-26 and Guide
Though banned by the 13th Amendment, peonage, the practice of holding a person in servitude or partial slavery in order to pay off a debt, was still in existence in the early half of the twentieth century. Most of the victims of peonage were African American, though some were recent white immigrants. This collection contains court case files, correspondence between the Justice Department and such groups as the NAACP, Southern Tenant Farmers Union, Federal Council of Churches of Christ, Workers Defense League and the International Defense League. There are also the investigative reports of the Bureau of Investigation, which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation. While the majority of this material covers the South, there is material relating to the West Virginia coal mining industry.
Records of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Pittsburgh Branch, 1940-1974.
Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
The Records of the NAACP, Pittsburgh Branch, consist of correspondence, reports of chapter to national headquarters; minutes of Executive Board meetings, reports of chapter’s activities, chapter programs on: segregation in labor and industry, employment, education, housing, and public accommodations; membership campaigns, cards, and record books; financial statements, paid bills, and receipt books. The records also include public relations information, and miscellaneous pamphlets.
Records of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, 1895-1992
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
Records of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Relating to Slaves, 1851-63
University of Pittsburgh Law Library Microform Collection
1851-1863
Revised Dred Scott Case Collection
Images and transcriptions of legal papers filed in the case of Dred Scott, along with a chronology.
Robert J. Simonds Papers, 1963-1966
Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Contains correspondence, memorabilia, and miscellaneous material pertaining to civil rights and interracial programs in the Pittsburgh Area Camp Achievement, George Washington Carver Week, Pittsburgh Interracial Home Visit Committee, Project Friendship, SHARE, United Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Pittsburgh Presbytery) Membership Exchange Plan, and Mississippi Project; includes tape of Jazz for Freedom Concert, 17 January 1965.
Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice, 1490-2007
1490-2007 (Carnegie Mellon users only)
Search and browse the full text of original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, and maps. There is extensive coverage of topics such as the African Coast; the Middle Passage; the varieties of slave experience (urban, domestic, industrial, farm, ranch and plantation); Spiritualism and Religion; Resistance and Revolts; the Underground Railroad; the Abolition Movement; Legislation; Education; the Legacy of Slavery and Slavery Today. The database covers all geographic areas.
Slavery and the Law (1775-1867)
Slavery and the Law features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867. These petitions were collected by Loren Schweninger over a four year period from hundreds of courthouses and historical societies in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The petitions document the realities of slavery at the most immediate local level and with amazing candor. Slavery and the Law also includes the important State Slavery Statutes collection, a comprehensive record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789-1865.

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
All known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery, as well as every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920, which includes many essays and articles in obscure, hard-to-find journals in the United States and elsewhere

Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Part 1
The Plantation Records in this module documents the far-reaching impact of plantations on both the American South and the nation. Plantation Records are both business records and personal papers because the plantation was both the business and the home for plantation owners. Business records include ledger books, payroll books, cotton ginning books, work rules, account books, and receipts. Personal papers include family correspondence, diaries, and wills. As business owners, the commodities produced by plantation owners--rice, cotton, sugar, tobacco, hemp, and others--accounted for more than half of the nation's exports. Note: You can see exactly what is in this collection if you go click on Browse (under colored banner) and then scrolling down the Browse Collections until you see "Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Part 1" and clicking on the carrot.
Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantation Records, Part 2
These records come from the holdings of the University of Virginia and Duke University. One of the extraordinary collections from the University of Virginia, especially for the study of slavery, is the papers of General John Hartwell Cocke. The papers of the Berkeley family from 1653 to 1865 are exceptional for the 18th and 19th centuries on such matters as land and crop sales, slave and medical accounts, and family and overseers' correspondence. The massive collection from the wealthy Bruce family is valuable for overseer correspondence and business records as well as for personal correspondence, women's diaries, and slave records. Other collections from University of Virginia include correspondence from overseers; documents on slave sales, runaway slaves, discipline, diet, health, and the work loads of adults and children; plantation management, and westward migration to Arkansas and Louisiana prior to the Civil War. Note: You can see exactly what is in this collection if you go click on Browse (under colored banner) and then scrolling down the Browse Collections until you see "Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Part 2" and clicking on the carrot.
Urban League of Pittsburgh Records, 1915-1963
Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
The records of the Urban League of Pittsburgh, founded in 1918, contain minutes, correspondence, department reports, photographs and Urban League Fellows theses from 1915-1963, with a concentration of materials between 1918-1945. Many of the records were destroyed in a fire that occurred in the League offices in 1945. The collection is divided into 9 series according to subject and are arranged chronologically and alphabetically. The strength of the collection concerns African-American employment and training. Topics such as federal housing projects, youth employment, worker discrimination and African-American welfare work. The records contain extensive material about the National Urban League, Negro Industrial Welfare Workers, National Vocation Opportunity Campaign and Camp Weldon Johnson. The photographs separated from the general collection maintain the file numbers present in this finding aid.
Virginia Runaways
Browse or search transcribed runaway slave advertisements from Virginia newspapers, 1736 to 1790. Also on the site are court and official records, planters' letters, diaries and accounts, literature and travel accounts, a tour a reconstructed slave quarter, and other images.
Works of Alexander Crummell
University of Pittsburgh-ULS Thomas Blvd microform storage-Use Get-It Service
Alexander Crummell (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Slave Narratives

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 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 (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA).
North American Slave Narratives
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. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves and some significant fictionalized slave narratives published in English before 1920.
Slave Narratives, a Folk History of Slavery...
Typewritten records prepared by the Federal Writers' project, 1936-1938, assembled by the Library of Congress project, Work Projects Administration.

Local Archives

Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Search "african americans" to see the collections available.
John H. Heinz History Center, African American
The African American Collection, comprised of archives and museum artifacts located at the History Center, is dedicated to the preservation, dissemination, and interpretation of the life, history and culture of Africans and African Americans in Western Pennsylvania.