African American Literature
Small Group Projects
Topics:
- Frederick Douglass--His Public Career
- The Nation of Islam/Black Muslims
- The Black Panther Party
- The Black Arts Movement
- Blockbusting: Segregation and Real Estate in Chicago
- Author profiles of R. Ellison and Z. N. Hurston
- Communist Party of the USA and race relations
- Marcus Garvey and the Back to Africa Movement
- All-black towns in the South
- Harlem Renaissance
- Minstrelsy
Reference Books
R 306.1 L85f Fundamentalists and Extremists
R 322.4203 Ex89 Extremist Groups: Information for Students
R 320.5303 At53e Encyclopedia of Modern American Extremists and Extremist Groups
R 323.1196073 G856 2003 Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the Twenty-First Century
R 810.9 En1932 Encyclopedia of African-American Literature
R 810.9 G856 The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature
R 909.0496003 Af83 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
R Q. 973.0496073 En19 Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History
R 973.0496073 St941 Student Almanac of African American History
R Q. 973.03 En19 Encyclopedia of American History (Hint: Use the Comprehensive Index to look up your topic; try a variety of keywords)
R 973.923 P373s The Sixties in America
R Q.977.311003 En19 Encyclopedia of Chicago
Subject Headings
Because not all topics have distinct subject headings, use the Advanced Search in the online catalog to combine subjects. For example: Garvey, Marcus, 1887-1940 AND Back to Africa movement.
Frederick Douglass--His Public Career
Douglass, Frederick, 1817?-1895.
Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895.
The Nation of Islam/Black Muslims
Black Muslims
Black Muslims --History.
Black Muslims --Biography.
Nation of Islam (Chicago, Ill.) --History.
The Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party.
Black Panther Party--Biography.
Black Panther Party--History.
The Black Arts Movement
Black Arts movement.
African Americans --Intellectual life --20th century.
African Americans in literature.
African American arts --20th century.
African Americans --Music --History and criticism.
African Americans in motion pictures.
Black power --United States --History --20th century.
Blockbusting: Segregation and Real Estate in Chicago
African Americans--Housing--Illinois--Chicago.
Public housing --Illinois --Chicago.
Low-income housing --Illinois --Chicago.
City and town life--Illinois--Chicago--History--20th century.
Real estate business Illinois Chicago.
Real property --Illinois --Chicago.
Communist Party of the USA and race relations
Communism --United States --History.
African American communists --History.
African Americans --Politics and government.
United States --Race relations.
Marcus Garvey and the Back to Africa Movement
Garvey, Marcus, 1887-1940
Back to Africa movement.
African Americans --Race identity.
All-black towns in the South
African Americans--Segregation--Southern States.
Southern States --Race relations.
African Americans --Southern States.
Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance.
African Americans --Intellectual life
Minstrelsy
African Americans --Music.
Minstrel shows.
African Americans in the performing arts.
History Databases
America: History & Life
Identifies U.S. and Canadian history from journals, book reviews, dissertations, and media reviews.
JSTOR searches full-text for backfile articles and reviews in over 130 multi-disciplinary journals. See Project Muse (below) for more recent articles.
Project Muse searches full-text in over 150 journals supplied by 10 university presses. Click on the search button to start your search. Muse works well for more recent periodical issues, while JSTOR (see above) reproduces older volumes.
Use the advanced search feature on Academic OneFile or Academic Search Premier.
African American Studies Databases (from the African American Research Center)
Oxford African American Studies Center
Features the 3-volume Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895, the 3-volume Black Women in America encyclopedia, the 5-volume Africana encyclopedia of the African and African American experience, and selected articles from other reference works. Also includes bibliographies, timelines, maps, image collections, and key primary source documents.
Black Studies Center
Combines several resources for research and teaching in Black Studies: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP), historical black newspapers, and the Black Literature Index. Click on Search at the top of the page to get to the advanced search page where you can use keywords and subjects, limit dates, and choose the type of content.
Black Thought and Culture
Black Thought and Culture is a single source for the published works of numerous historically important black leaders. Along with well-known works, the collection features approximately 5,000 pages of unique, fugitive, and never-before-published materials. When complete, Black Thought and Culture will provide approximately 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to 1975.
Newspapers
Ethnic NewsWatch 1960-present
Identifies full text access for 200 newspapers and journals of the ethnic, minority, and native press. Choose a specific date range to narrow your search.
Proquest Historical Newspapers
Click on "Databases selected, then scroll to the bottom of the database menu to access these papers:
- Historical Chicago Tribune (1849-1986)
- Historical Chicago Defender (1905-1975)
Literature Databases
The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
Click on Advanced Search, then choose People from the dropdown menu to search for a particular author.
Literature Resource Center
Identifies biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline. Type in the author's name you are searching, select the Person - By or About bubble, then click Search.
Literature Criticism Online is a digitized collection of ten Gale series solely comprised of literary criticism. These series include the following topics: contemporary literature, 20th century lit., 19th century lit., Shakespeare, lit. from 1400-1800, classical and medieval lit., poetry, short stories, drama, and children's literature. Entries are viewed in a reader embedded in the browser (akin to reading the print version) or can be downloaded as PDF files.
Websites
American Experience: Marcus Garvey
Companion website to the film of the same title by PBS. Includes film transcript, Garvey's writings, video clips, and links to further reading.
A Guide to Harlem Renaissance Materials
Web guide to primary sources and external websites by the Library of Congress.
American Experience: Blackface Minstrelsy
Transcript of PBS interview with with historians Dale Cockrell, Eric Lott, Deane Root, Fath Ruffins, and
Josephine Wright, writers Ken Emerson and Mel Watkins, and performers
Nanci Griffith and Thomas Hampson.
Blackface Minstrelsy
Collection of primary resources, a section of the Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture website by the University of Virginia.
The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress
Use the links in the left toolbar to learn more about this collection, read Hurston's plays, and view a timeline of her life. Also click on Related Resources under About This Collection for an extensive bibliography of additional resources.
The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920
Click on Search by Keyword underneath the image to search this collection. Search keywords such as Marcus Garvey, Back to Africa, minstrel, etc. When using phrases, select "Match this exact phrase" in the dropdown menu underneath the search box. To view an item, click on the search result, then click on View this Item. This will take you to the Ohio Historical Society webpage, where you can download a high resolution version of your item. Notice that you can also browse the index for subject headings just as you would in the online catalog.
First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920
Use the same search strategies as above. This collection will include information for the "All-Black Towns in the South" topic. Browsing the Subject Index will be most useful here.