African American Studies

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 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).  At the conclusion of the Slave Narrative project, a set of edited transcripts was assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. In 2000-2001, with major support from the Citigroup Foundation, the Library digitized the narratives from the microfilm edition and scanned from the originals 500 photographs, including more than 200 that had never been microfilmed or made publicly available.  This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs divisions of the Library of Congress.

 
https://www-degruyterbrill-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/document/doi/10.1515/9781400880805/html

The Kerner Report is a powerful window into the roots of racism and inequality in the United States. Hailed by Martin Luther King Jr. as a "physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life," this historic study was produced by a presidential commission established by Lyndon Johnson, chaired by former Illinois governor Otto Kerner, and provides a riveting account of the riots that shook 1960s America. The commission pointed to the polarization of American society, white racism, economic inopportunity, and other factors, arguing that only "a compassionate, massive, and sustained" effort could reverse the troubling reality of a racially divided, separate, and unequal society. Conservatives criticized the report as a justification of lawless violence while leftist radicals complained that Kerner didn’t go far enough. But for most Americans, this report was an eye-opening account of what was wrong in race relations.

History Vault: Slavery and the Law⁩

Slavery and the Law features petitions that vividly portray the contrasts, contradictions, ironies, and ambiguities of Southern history. Sourced from Race and Slavery Petitions Project edited by Loren Schweninger.
https://www.proquest.com/hvslaveryandlaw/index?parentSessionId=aZazopNZstsPgJWY6lyQAnODBrhxmCun1kWoYITddqo%3D&accountid=14667

History Vault: Papers of the NAACP

https://proquest.libguides.com/historyvault/NAACP

About the NAACP Papers

ProQuest and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have teamed up to digitize the association’s archives, bringing one of the most famous records of the civil rights movement to the online world via ProQuest History Vault. The collection is nearly two million pages of internal memos, legal 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: lynching, school desegregation, and discrimination in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, and housing, among others.

The documents span a remarkable range. National office records provide insight into NAACP’s leaders and their relationships with the U.S. Congress, with presidents from Taft to Nixon, and with other civil rights organizations. The collection also documents the full range of civil rights tactics in the 1950s and 1960s, revealing a first-hand look at the important roles grassroots leaders and women played in the civil rights movement. Documents from local NAACP branches come from all 50 states and give additional depth and insight.

With a timeline that runs from 1909 to 1972, users can examine 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. And, they can explore the challenges to the NAACP in the late 1960s and 1970s, such as the Black Power Movement, urban riots, and the Vietnam War. Legal files in the collection chart the organization’s spectacular successes from the 1910s-1970s, including the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision as well as hundreds of other important cases from across the United States.

NAACP Modules in History Vault

(Links to pages describing content in each module)

• NAACP Papers: Board of Directors, Annual Conferences, Major Speeches, and National Staff Files

• NAACP Papers: Branch Department, Branch Files, and Youth Department Files

• NAACP Papers: Special Subjects

• NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns—Education, Voting, Housing, Employment, Armed Forces

• NAACP Papers: The NAACP’s Major Campaigns—Legal Department Files

• NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns—Scottsboro, Anti-Lynching, Criminal Justice, Peonage, Labor, and Segregation and Discrimination Complaints and Responses.

History Vault: Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 2⁩
https://www.proquest.com/hvblackfreedomorg2/index?parentSessionId=tZ4mMCDKcUI2kB4eGuMj7UqwFWS2GSN%2FSvn7q7jdstQ%3D&accountid=14667

The records of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Africa-related papers of Claude Barnett, and the Robert F. Williams Papers.