African American Booklist: Databases

In an 1883 decision known as the “The Civil Rights Cases” the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and declared the federal government could not prevent discrimination on the basis of race. This ruling paved the way for the codification of Jim Crow laws which would provide a legal framework to reverse the hard-earned gains African- Americans had made during Reconstruction.

Where does the content come from?
The content in this database was curated from the Library Company of Philadelphia’s acclaimed collection Afro-Americana Imprints, 1535-1922.

What time period does it cover?
From the late 19th century to the early 20th, the end of Reconstruction through the first World War.

What’s in it?
This collection covers many topical categories such as the growing body of work by African- American writers; the portrayal of African-Americans in art and literature; religion; race; early histories of slavery; the Civil War; Reconstruction; and others. This archive contains varied perspectives on subjects including but not limited to:

African-American Civil Rights
African-American Women
Political Restoration of the South
Social Conditions in the South
Separate but Equal
The Race 'Problem'
Theorizing the Origins of Race
Minstrel Shows and Satire
Race Relations and Southern States
White Supremacy Movements and Groups
Back-to-Africa Movement
Suffrage/Right to Vote
Lynching

And on organizations such as:

African Methodist Episcopal Church
Baptist Associations
Ku Klux Klan
Presbyterian Church

This database provides important background and context for students seeking an understanding of the disparate interpretations of this extremely divisive period.

This database is a subset of Afro-Americana Imprints.

The content in this database was curated from the Library Company of Philadelphia’s acclaimed collection Afro-Americana Imprints, 1535-1922.

What time period does it cover?
From the mid 1860’s to the early 1880’s, the end of the Civil War to Jim Crow.

What’s in it?
This collection covers many topical categories such as Reconstruction by state; works by African- American writers on race, slavery, and civil rights; the portrayal of African Americans in the Arts; early histories of the Civil War and slavery; and others. This archive contains varied perspectives on subjects including but not limited to:

African-American Activism
Causes of the Civil War
Political Restoration of the South
Legal Status of African Americans
Congress and Radical Reconstruction
Discrimination and Segregation
Theorizing the Origins of Race
Minstrel Show Music, Scripts, etc.
Education in the South
African-Americans in Office
Back-to-Africa Movement
Suffrage/Right to Vote
Lynchings and Massacres

And on organizations such as:

Baptist Church
Freedmen's Bureau
Ku Klux Klan
Presbyterian Church
The Confederacy
Republican Party

This database provides important background and context for students seeking an appreciation of the attempted transformation of the South and diverse perspectives on the greater Reconstruction Era.

This resource is a subset of Afro-Americana Imprints

*More than 1,300 books, pamphlets, almanacs, broadsides and ephemera
*Compiled by the curators of the extraordinary Afro-Americana Imprints collection

*Created from the Library Company’s acclaimed Afro-Americana Collection—an accumulation that began with Benjamin Franklin and steadily increased throughout its entire history—this unique online resource will provide researchers with more than 12,000 printed works. These essential books, pamphlets and broadsides, including many lesser-known imprints, hold an unparalleled record of African American history, literature and culture.

*The Afro-Americana Imprints collection spans nearly 400 years, from the early 16th to the early 20th century. Critically important subjects covered include the West’s discovery and exploitation of Africa; the rise of slavery in the New World along with the growth and success of abolitionist movements; the development of racial thought and racism; descriptions of African American life—slave and free—throughout the Americas; and slavery and race in fiction and drama. Also featured are printed works of African American individuals and organizations.

* Works by authors of African or African-American descent
* A fascinating look at the creative efforts of black authors over three centuries
* Compiled by the curators of the acclaimed Afro-Americana Imprints collection

Black Drama, now in its expanded third edition, contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.

*Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print and each play is extensively indexed

*collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major black leaders in North America
*Works by teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures form the corpus
*collection encompasses 100,000 pages of materials, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, trial transcripts, and interviews

Gale InfoTrac Power Packs are subsets of periodicals found in the Academic OneFile and General OneFile Databases. Each subject specific PowerPack Collection has the content needed by a unique category of researcher.

*Using biographies, historical essays, and thematic pieces-many by the foremost scholars in the field-it addresses a wide array of subjects in over 2,300 articles to fully define in one source the cultural roots and current condition of the African-American community.

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*Includes federal and state laws and court cases

*Covers laws, cases, and other legal materials

*Includes federal cases 1789 to present; Tenn cases 1945 to present