Research Guides: African-American Studies: Black Diaspora Studies

Newspapers and Media

American Black Journal
A digital archive of the long-running African American public affairs TV program by the same name. Thirty-six years of digitized programs searchable by date, theme, and host among other ways.

Ebony Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Ebony is one of the key Afro-American magazines of the 20th century, covering 20th and 21st-Century current events, art, design, politics and culture, literature, advertising, and more. Their editorial philosophy is to “showcase the best and brightest as well as highlighting the disparities in Black life in the United States and worldwide”. The Ebony Magazine Archive contains indexing, abstracting and full text for the complete archive (including Covers and Advertisements) beginning in November 1945 to June 2014.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Features newspapers, magazines, and journals from various ethnic and minority presses.
Jet Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
JET Magazine Archive covers the civil rights movement, politics, education, and other social topics with an African American focus. It includes over 3,000 issues providing a broad view of news, culture, and entertainment from its first issue in 1951 through 2014.
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Full-text database of primary source newspapers from the 19th century in the United States. Includes political party newspapers, dailies, special interest group newspapers, illustrated papers, and major newspapers.

People and Personalities

The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University
"The site is freely accessible to the public, except the The Autobiography of Malcolm X MSE, which is restricted to Columbia University students and faculty... The index to 4,000 pages of FBI files is extremely useful, since the files at the FBI Web site are not indexed...The Project Journal gives access to several full-text research articles from the journal Souls, as well as abundant multimedia sources..."
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
"In 2005, Stanford University professor Clayborne Carson, lifelong civil rights activist, established the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute... Its focus on King notwithstanding, [this] Web site's coverage of civil rights is comprehensive. Well organized and interactive, it is easy to navigate from topic to topic. One of the main entries is King Resources, which includes the King Online Encyclopedia."

Organizations and Associations

The National Urban League
The official web site for the National Urban League. Their mission is to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.
NAACP Online
The web site for The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Their mission is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.

Black Diaspora Databases

African American Studies Center Online This link opens in a new window
Collection of articles focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.
African-American Historical Serials Collection This link opens in a new window
Includes African American newspapers, magazine, annuals, and reports published from 1829-1922, including materials from African American religious organizations and social service agencies.
Ancestry: Library Edition This link opens in a new window
Ancestor search and genealogical information from census records, historical maps, and more.

Adam Matthew Explorer
This database includes many relevant primary source thematic questions, including African-American Communities, Race Relations in America, and Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice.

Open Access Black Diaspora Resources

Here is a list of databases containing periodical literature, multimedia resources, and other materials related to the study of Africa and African Americans that are freely available on the web.