LibGuides: Africana Studies: Primary Sources

Approaches to Finding Primary Sources

The "primaryness" of a source emerges in relation to the researcher's engagement with it. The UC Berkeley Libraries define primary sources as "either created during the time period being studied or...created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs)."

(source: Finding Historical Primary Sources: Getting Started, last updated 8/12/18, http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=4409&p=15606)

When determining primary sources for your research, it's helpful to give yourself a historical context that defines your search. This could be a range of dates. It could also be determined by geographical sites of origin. You might also be interested in a specific type of source. Some examples include:

photographs
diaries
newspaper articles
advertisements
films
web sites
sound recordings
government documents
works of art

Databases and digital repositories can offer a multitude of paths to potential primary source material for your research. In addition, you might want to try searches in the CLIO catalog, limited by date of publication.

Primary Sources in Africana Studies: Digital Collections and Repositories

Africa's Historical Newspapers
Africa's historical newspapers provides full-text access to historical newspapers from Africa. Includes African Newspapers, Series 1 and 2, 1800-1925 as well as African newspapers--The British Library Collection, 1821-1900, offering coverage of the people, issues and events that shaped the continent during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Featuring titles from Algeria to Angola, Zambia to Zimbabwe, this resource chronicles the evolution of Africa through eyewitness reporting, editorials, legislative information, letters, poetry, advertisements, obituaries and other items. Also included is the Rand Daily Mail, 1902-1985 -- a 20th century newspaper containing unique perspectives on South Africa and the African continent, with deep coverage of the era of apartheid.
Black Abolitionist Papers
Black Abolitionist Papers gathers and makes accessible primary sources created African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865. Content includes letters, speeches, editorials, articles, sermons, and essays.
Black Drama
Contains over 1,200 plays by 300 playwrights from North America, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Australia, and other locations, including some of the great names in drama (Zora Neale Hurston, August Wilson, Ossie Davis, Sonia Sanchez, Langston Hughes). Also included, selectively, are production photographs, as well as images of playbills and other ephemera. Many of the plays are previously unpublished.
Black Short Fiction and Folklore
Black Studies Center
"A fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies including scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books, and much more. It combines essential resources for research and teaching in Black Studies, including The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, Index to Black Periodicals Full Text, Black Literature Index, and the Chicago Defender historical newspaper from 1912-1975."
Black Thought and Culture
Non-fiction works by African-American leaders and others who have dealt substantially with issues of race in America. Includes books, essays, articles, speeches, letters, interviews, and other materials, some of which have not previously been published.

Center for Research Libraries Catalog
has particularly strong holdings of world newspapers on microfilm, including many newspapers from Africa. There's also a strong selection of other periodicals, including African American independent magazines and journals. Use the catalog to search these holdings, and then submit an interlibrary loan request for the microfilm reels you'd like to view (these can be delivered to the Columbia libraries).

Black Newspapers
Full text and full-image articles from African American newspapers: Atlanta daily world, Los Angeles sentinel, New York Amsterdam news, Pittsburgh courier, The Chicago defender and more..

Umbra Search
is a growing, searchable digital collection of over 400,000 sources related to African American history, from US cultural heritage institutions, museums, and archives. Umbra is developed by the Givens Collection of African American Literature at the University of Minnesota in partnership with the Penumbra Theatre Company.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
A resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000, this collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history generally. The collection currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors.