Research Portal: African American Experience: Research Databases

Welcome to the African American Experience: Research Databases subject guide! This resource is designed to support your exploration of African American history, culture, and contributions through specialized research databases.

Explore tabs dedicated to:

Juneteenth: Learn more about the history and significance of this important celebration.
Helpful Websites: Featuring valuable resources like African American Mosaic, African-American Odyssey, and the Black Film Archive.
VSU Special Collections and Archives: Access exclusive materials highlighting Virginia State University's rich history and the African American experience.
Citation Services: Find tools to help you properly cite your research.

Whether conducting academic research or expanding your knowledge, this guide offers a wealth of information and resources to enrich your understanding.

The Fountain: Search VSU's Collections for books, journal articles, and more...

Ask-A-Librarian

Need research help?

Use Ask-A-Librarian to contact staff to answer general and specific library questions and identify the most appropriate print and online resources for your research.

Recommended Databases:

Accessible Archives
Devoted to primary source material in American history that includes selected African American newspapers from the 19th century. Information archived is from leading historical periodicals and books, and includes eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records.
African American Historical Serials Collection
Includes African American periodicals, annuals and reports published from 1829-1922 including materials from African American religious organizations and social service agencies.
America: History and Life with Full-Text
Full coverage of articles and dissertations covering the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture and Law
Collection contains 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, including cases into the 20th century because long after slavery was ended there were still court cases based on issues emanating from slavery.
Historical Abstracts with Full-Text
Article abstracts and citations of books and dissertations covering world history from 1450 to the present; excludes the United States and Canada.
JSTOR
Provides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title.
ProQuest Black Historical Newspapers
Offers the full-text and image article from Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Defender (1910-1975), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Norfolk Journal & Guide (1921-2003), and the Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).
ProQuest History Vault: Black Freedom Digital Archive
Primary source material from federal agencies, letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, and diaries are among the unique resources available in digital format for the first time. Module one consists of 37 collections of organizational records and personal papers, and the second module is comprised of 36 collections from federal government agencies.

HBCU Library Alliance Digital Collection

A Digital Collection Celebrating the Founding of the Historically Black College and University is a collection of primary resources from HBCU libraries and archives. It includes several thousand scanned pages and represents HBCU libraries first collaborative effort to make a historic collection digitially available. Collections are contributed from member libraries of the Historically Black College and University Library Alliance.