Documents

Although most documents are located in archives and special collections, increasingly they are being digitized and placed on the internet. However, many are also printed by commercial publishers. The titles below are documents from the Negro Convention Movement (1830-1864), documents relating African Americans and organized labor, and founding political documents from the Congo.

(click images to enlarge)

Papers and Speeches

The papers and speeches of prominent people are also good primary resources. The titles below include the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speeches by Nelson Mandela, and the papers of Jan Smuts.

(click images to enlarge)

Autobiographies

Autobiographies are another excellent source of primary materials. The titles below include the autobiographies of Ronnie Kasrils, a leader of the African National Congress (ANC), African American political activist Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure), and Benedita de Silva, an Afro-Brazilian politician/activist.

(click images to enlarge)

Newspapers

Newspapers are another primary source. The examples below include the Chicago Defender, the Black Panther, and the Soweto Post.

(click images to enlarge)

Print & Microform Primary Sources at Bobst

The Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, located on the tenth floor of Bobst, contains a collection of resources on labor and radical history. Included are a number of sources pertaining to African American history. These include the papers of Harold Cruse, a noted African American intellectual and cultural theorist; John Pittman, a journalist and leading member of the Communist Party, USA; and Cleveland Robinson, a leader of New York's United Auto Workers, District 65 . The collection also contains the papers of the Black Trade Unionists Leadership Committee (New York City).

Bobst Microform Collection (Papers & Documents)

The Bobst Microform Collection, located on Lower Level 2, contains many collections of primary source material in Africana Studies. They include: the Schomburg Clipping File, primarily a historical collection of clippings form periodicals and newspapers held at the Schomburg Research collection of the New York Public Library; the Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which consists of the directors files, organizational correspondence, and bookkeeping files; Blacks in the United States Armed Forces, a collection of official and federal government reports of the role and activity of African Americans in the U.S. military; the Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, which consists of correspondence, financial records, essays, poems, and newspaper clippings; and the Papers of the NAACP, which consists of the complete records of the national organization (board minutes, monthly reports, annual convention documents, and speeches). In addition the library has microfilmed copies of the FBI files on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Elijah Muhammad, and Jesse Jackson.

Bobst Microform Collection (Newspapers)

Bobst Library maintains a large number of newspapers on microform. Below is a selected list of Africana-related newspapers.

The African: Journal of African Affairs. New York (1937 - 1948)

The African Repository and Colonial Journal. Washington, D. C. (1825 - 1892)

Afro-American. Baltimore. (1915 - 1988)

Atlanta [Daily] World. Atlanta. (1931 - 2000)

Birmingham World. Birmingham. (1945 - 1996)

The Black Panther (1971 - 1980)

Call and Post. Cleveland. (1934 - 2000)

The Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist. Cincinnati. (1836 - 1846)

The Colored American Magazine. Boston & New York. (1900 - 1909)

Douglass' Monthly. Rochester, N. Y. (1859 - 1863)

Genius of Universal Emancipation. Ohio. (1821 - 1839)

The Half-century Magazine. Chicago. (1916 - 1925)

Liberator. Boston. (1831 - 1865)

National Anti-slavery Standard. New York. (1840 - 1870)

New York Age. New York. (1905 - 1960)

New York Amsterdam News. New York. (1922 - 1972 & 1975 - 1992)

The People's Voice. New York. (1942 - 1948)

The Virginia Star. Richmond. (1877 - 1881)

The Voice of the Negro. Atlanta & Chicago. (1904 - 1907)

The Washington Blade. Washington D.C. (1969 - 1990)

Selected Primary Print Sources in the Bobst Collection

Often primary sources are reprinted in collections. Below is a selected list of printed primary sources in Bobst Library.

The African American Archive: The history of the Black experience in documents.
E 184.6 .A33 2001

Proceedings of the Black National and State Conventions, 1865-1900.
E 184.5 .P73 1986

African American Political Thought.
E 185 .A2536 2003

The Negro in the Congressional Record.
E 185 .B47

The Black Worker: A documentary history from colonial times to present.
E 185 .B59

The Messenger.
E 185.5 .M47

Blacks in the United States Armed Forces: basic documents.
E 185.63 .B55

Black Women Oral History Project.
E 185.86 .G74 1991

The Marcus Garvey and United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) Papers.
E 185.97 .G3M36 1987

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.
E 185.97 .K5A2 1992

The Booker T. Washington Papers.
E 185.97 .W274

Electronic Resources at Bobst Library

The materials below are available through the Bobst Library website.

African American Song

Black Drama - 1850 to Present

Black Short Fiction

Black Studies Center

Chicago Defender (1905-1975)

Oxford African American Studies Center

Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience