African American History

Prepared by Mika Slaughter

February 2003

Databases and Indexes

Indexes over 2,000 journals plus books, media reviews, and dissertations covering the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present day.   Gives citations and abstracts only.

A comprehensive collection of newspapers and journals of the ethnic and minority press.   Articles are available full-text and can be searched by keywords or a variety of field types.

Consists of 174,000 references to articles, reviews, and obituaries published in 150 African American periodicals and general-interest periodicals and newspapers.   Entries are arranged chronologically by subject with some annotations.   Notes, photographs, and illustrations accompanying articles are also indexed.   An index is not available, however.

Selected Periodicals

Finding Books

Use the USF Libraries Online Catalog to search for books on African American History.  Reference books are located on the first floor of the Poynter Library, books in the Circulation Collection are located on the 2nd and 3rd floors, and resources in the Special Collections are located on the 3rd floor. 

Bibliographies

An annotated bibliography and guide to the African American resources in the Florida State archives.   The items are arranged by agency and record group and include much nineteenth-century primary source material.   There is a detailed name, subject, and geographic index at the back.

Lengthy bibliographical essays are divided into nine major areas of the black experience in America , starting with the African slave trade in the 1500s through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1970s.   A combined name and subject index is appended.

A comprehensive, chronological history and bibliography of African Americans.   Covers notable people, places, and events in the African American experience.   Contains a variety of research aids

Biographies

Gives profiles on thousands of African Americans.   Initial content comes from the Black Biographical Dictionaries, 1790-1950 ; however, links in the records will lead you to full-text narratives and images.   For more recent biographies, use: Biography and Genealogy Master Index (BGMI)

Profiles of 558 men and women who "have played an important role in the           development of African American children, by serving as a role model.   Anyone who died in the year 1968 (the year of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.) or before is not included."   Many of the page-length articles include photographs. There is an occupational index and a geographical index of those profiled.

Briefly describes the lives and contributions of more than fifty notable African Americans in Florida from 1528 to the present.   Short chapters on black life and history in Florida are interspersed throughout.   Appended are a calendar of events, a short description of the 141 sites on the Florida Black Heritage Trail, a glossary, and a subject index.

Notable African American figures in history and culture tell their stories in their own voices, providing an autobiographical format for learning three centuries of the African American experience, from the pre-Revolutionary period to contemporary society.

A combined encyclopedia of 804 entries: 641 are individual biographies and 163 deal with general topics and organizations that impacted black women's lives.   Articles are signed, usually illustrated with a portrait, and conclude with a short bibliography.   The second volume gives a chronology, notes on the contributors, and a detailed 150-page subject index.

Library has: 1996/97. Formerly: Who's Who Among Black Americans .   Library has: 1975/76, 1977/78, 1990/91.   Biographical sketches of over 20,000 living African Americans outstanding in all fields and professions.   A geographic and an occupational index are at the back.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Alphabetically arranged volume of key people, places, and events in the history of the African diaspora. In addition, featured items include articles on the civil rights movement, the Harlem renaissance, a lengthy bibliography, and a special acknowledgement of W.E.B. du Bois.

Articles (some lengthy) on persons and events in the African American experience. Some are illustrated; longer pieces are signed and conclude with a list of suggested readings.   Appendices in the final volume include lists of: the 100 most profitable black-owned      businesses; research centers and libraries; black colleges and universities; black-oriented newspapers and magazines; black-owned radio and television stations; subject bibliographies; and people by professions.   A detailed subject index follows.  

Articles, on the subject, are arranged alphabetically, signed, and have accompanying bibliographies.   Includes a chronology of slavery, a list of contributors, and a subject index.

2,200 signed articles, alphabetically arranged, with cross-references and bibliographies.   Two-thirds are biographical and the remaining one-third deal with events in black history.   Illustrations scattered throughout.   The final volume contains an appendix with tables, charts, and statistical data (table of contents, pp. 2923-25), a list of biographical entries by profession, and a detailed subject index.

"Surveys the history, meaning, and application of civil rights issues in the United States ."   Lengthy signed articles, most with a bibliography attached, and many with illustrations.   Covers, in addition to broad general issues, court cases, rights organizations and biographies of individual activists.   Appendices at the back of volume 3 list, among others, court cases, a chronology, a filmography, a bibliography, and a subject index.

Topical and biographical entries covering the fifty years of the Civil Rights Movement, plus 19th- and 20th-century activists.   Includes a chronology (1941-1995) and a lengthy bibliography.

Chronologies

Covers the African American historical experience and includes color maps.   Divided by major historical eras and supplemented with illustrations.   Index at the back.

Divided by major eras, each event carries a map and a one-page commentary.   Listed in chronological order.   Index at the back.  

Lists nearly 3,000 instances of first achievements involving blacks, with emphasis on African Americans. Topical chapters are subdivided alphabetically and chronologically.   Illustrated throughout with photographs.   A foldout timeline and a calendar of firsts precede the text; an index by year and a name and keyword index follow.

A one-volume work arranged with six parts, including "Roots of Black America", "Two Communities: Slave and Free". "Toward Freedom", "African American's Under Arms", "Struggle for Equality", and "The African American Community".   Covered within these parts are topics such as the past of Africa and African Americans, the commencement and expansion of slavery, the role of Black men in American wars, and contemporary African American culture and urbanization.   Features a chronology and bibliography.

Listings by year of major events in black history and culture from 1492 to 1993.   Bibliography and index at the back.

Statistics

Divided into eight topical chapters with relevant tables within each.   Most information comes from U. S. government sources, specifically the Bureau of the Census.   Glossary and index at the back.

Nineteen broad topical chapters are subdivided alphabetically by subject and table name.   Tabular material starts with the eighteenth century through 1975.   Information is based on U.S. government publications and statistics, "but a significant amount of material came from publications originating at African-American institutions or from African-American authors."   There is a list of reference sources and a detailed subject index at the end of the second volume.

Suggested General Works

A historical presentation of African Americans who have contributed to various aspects of the U.S. experience during the most recent century.   Divided by decades, the volume covers artists, athletes, educators, musicians, military figures, writers, and other notable figures.

Provides first hand accounts of the African American slave experience based on collected slave narratives and oral histories.

Four hundred thirty pages (history, society, and culture) containing topical chapters that cover significant aspects of the African American experience.   Illustrations include photographs, tables, and charts, and there is a cumulative index as well as a bibliography at the end of the volume.

 

Covers notable Black soldiers and events regarding the participation of Blacks in American military history.   Articles begin with the Revolutionary War and end with Desert Storm.

A history of Tampa 's black community compiled by the Black History Project of the Hillsborough County Museum .   Footnotes at the back form a rough bibliography, but there is no index.

Highlights the Florida chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.   Emphasis is placed on the people who were influential in the organization and promotion of the association and its cause, as well as key events in the state of Florida pertaining to the association.                            

A comprehensive view of the civil rights movement, this work contains historical perspectives on aspects of the movement like labor and civil rights, the role of women during the civil rights era, grassroots operations, affirmative action, and much more.   Also includes a chronology.  

Considered the definitive text on African American history, this is the 8 th edition of John Hope Franklin's classic work.

A history of Black participation in various American wars.   Particular attention is given to the role of black soldiers during war and the majority influence on and response to these various roles.

 

As denoted by the subtitle, this work emphasizes African American males, particularly focusing on the social and historical aspects of the black male experience.   Contains historical articles regarding various periods in American history, from the slave trade to contemporary society.  

 

A social, political and economic view of African and African Americans, from the beginning of the slave trade to the present day.  

Websites

Bus to Destiny: The Olive B. McLin Community History Project 

An oral history of the black community in St. Petersburg, Florida, conducted by anthropology students of Dr. Jay Sokolovsky from the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg Campus.   Includes a photo archive and links to local sources.   A listening station for the recorded histories is located at the James Weldon Johnson Branch of the St. Petersburg Public Library (located in the Enoch Davis Center on 18 th Avenue South).