Subject Headings for finding Books in the Library
Use both subject heading and word searches to find everything on your topic. Ask a Reference Librarian to help you find all the appropriate subject headings. Some of the most important are listed below.
- African American - Used as an adjective to describe a portion of a group of people or things. e.g. African American actors, African American college students.
- African Americans - Used as subject for works about U.S. citizens of African descent. e.g. African Americans - Civil Rights, African Americans -Religion.
- African Americans In - Used to mean "as portrayed in", or in a profession. e.g. African Americans in motion pictures or African Americans in the motion picture industry.
- Blacks - Used for works about Blacks as an element in the population of a country. It usually has a geographic subdivision. e.g. Blacks Great Britain Social Conditions or Jamaica Blacks Fiction.
- Race - is used in the sociological or ethnographic sense. It has narrower "see also" references for Black Race, Caucasian Race, Race Relations, etc.
- Slavery - A term which often has geographic subdivisions and narrower "see also" references. e.g. Slave Trade, Slave holders, Slavery United States.
Full Text Publications on the Web
Research Guides
- Ref E185 .H326 2001 Harvard Guide to African American History
- Ref Z1361.N39 D37 1985 Davis, Nathaniel. Afro-American reference: an annotated bibliography of selected resources.
- Ref Z1361.N39 N578 1984 Newman, Richard. Black access: a bibliography of Afro-American bibliographies.
- Ref Z1361.N39 S77 1988 Stevenson, Rosemary M. Index to Afro-American reference resources
Periodical Indexes and Bibliographies
Most of the general and subject indexes available to you in the Library and on the Web Research Indexes List include articles by and about Afro-Americans and Blacks, e.g.
In addition there are specialized print indexes to be explored:
- Ref Z1361.N39 S373a 1984+ Bibliographic Guide to Black Studies. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. An annual, International in scope and comprehensive in its coverage of black activity. Books by authors of African descent and all significant materials about peoples of African descent.
- Ref AI3.O46 1984-1997+ Index to Black periodicals
- Ref AI3.O46 1973-1983 Index to periodical articles by and about Blacks
- Ref Z1361.N39I5 1950-1959 Index to selected periodicals
- Ref PN4882.5 .A35 1998 African American Newspapers and Periodicals: National Bibliography. The most complete census of newspapers and periodicals published and edited by African Americans between 1827 and the present. Over 6500 titles are included.
Quick Reference
- Ref E185.5 .N34 8th ed. The African-American Almanac
- AFRO-American Almanac Historical Events, Historical Documents, Biographies, and Folktales; may load slowly but is useful
- Ref E185 .E54 1996 v.1-5, suppl. Encyclopedia of African American culture and History
- Ref E185 .H543 1995 v.1-2 Historical statistics of Black America
- Ref E185.86 .N68 1999 Notable Black American Men
- Ref E185.96 .N68 1996 Notable Black American Women
- Ref E185.5 .O74 2001 Organizing Black America: an Encyclopedia of African American Associations
- Ref E185.5 N317 (annual) The State of Black America (National Urban League)
- Ref E185 .C86 1994 Time lines of African American History
- Ref E185.96 .W522 2000 Whos Who Among African Americans
African American History
- African American History - Historical Text Archive Mississippi State University's list of primary text resources.
- REF Z1361.N39 L47 1993 African American Mosaic. A broad survey of the Library of Congress's holdings in the history and culture of Black Americans in the United States.
- African American Mosaic The web exhibit covers only four areas; Colonization, Abolition, Migrations, and the WPA, but will be expanding in the future.
- African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship The exhibit includes the work of abolitionists in the first half of the nineteenth century, depictions of the long journey following the Civil War towards equality in employment, education and politics, strategies used to secure the vote, recognition of outstanding black leaders, and the contributions of sports figures, black soldiers, artists, actors, writers and others in the fight against segregation and discrimination
- African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. Murry Collection 1818-1907 Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love
- African American Women Writers of the 19th Century A digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th century black women writers from the NYPL Schomburg Collection
- Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writer's project, 1936-1938 2300 first hand accounts of slavery and 500 photographs. The Colby Library also has this material in its collection as Microfilm 79 Slave Narratives Microfilm. Also in, paper at E441 .A58 The American Slave
- The Church in the Southern Black Community A large site with many full text sources tracking the transformation of Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life in the Southern Black Community.
- Douglass: Archives of American Public Address Full text of speeches by Douglass, DuBois, King and others about slavery, civil rights, and free speech.
- Freedmen and Southern Society Project This site contains transcribed and original letters and documents written by slaves and freedmen/women about slavery and emancipation. Most are selected from a collection published in paper as Freedom: a Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 -- E185.2.F88. The complete paper copies are available in the library.
- Images of African Americans from the 19th Century
- Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University. Descriptions of of the most important African American research collections (the Archives and Museum pages for access to interesting materials)
- New York Public Library: Digital Schomburg
- North American Slave Narratives: Beginnings to 1920 230 English language narratives and many biographies of fugitive and former slaves.
- Microfilm #3250 26 reels Records of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. 1895-1922.
Civil Rights and Race (20th Century)
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project Contains primary documents written during King's life and secondary documents written about him.
- Microfilm #3124-3164 23 reels The Bayard Rustin Papers, 1942-1987
- Microfilm #1765 69 reels Civil Rights During the Johnson Administration
- Microfilm #3253 22 reels Papers of the NAACP. Part 21, Relations with the modern civil rights movement, 1956-1965. (Note: Check the Bowdoin catalog for parts 1 and 4 of the series)
- Microfilm #3254 21 reels Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1954-1970 pt.1
- Brookings Research on Race and Minority Politics This new special section from the Brookings Institution explores the issue of race and minority politics in America.
Education
General Interest
Last Updated Date: 07/25/2006
Created by: Menchen, Margaret P.
Email: library@colby.edu |
