Research Guides: Ethnic Studies: African-American Experiences: Home

Introduction

This guide is meant to give you a quick introduction to the extensive resources the Butte College Library has to offer on all aspects of African-American history and culture. Find more by searching from the library home page, using terms such as African-American, black power, or specific names, and combining them with other terms like history, music, art, or activism. Note that because our library collection goes back in time, you will find some books that use terms we now consider outdated or even suspect. Remember that those terms were correct and dignified when the older books were published, and some of the pieces in the books are unique, found only in the original publications. We have updated where possible, but some books are simply irreplaceable.

Why do colleges have ethnic studies classes and departments? Listen to The Long, Bloody Strike For Ethnic Studies, from the podcast Code Switch, to learn about the student activism that led to more ethnic studies classes in higher education.

There are two other guides you may find useful: the Black History Month guide, with links to historical reading and online museum exhibitions of primary sources, and the Racial Justice and Anti-Racism Reading List.

"Harriet and the Promised Land," by Jacob Lawrence, 1968.

What databases should I use?

We subscribe to over 50 databases that collect articles, reference materials, ebooks, and videos for you to access. Here are a few good databases to try out when searching for articles on African-American history and culture.

Black Life in America (Newsbank) This link opens in a new window
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The experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media. Topics include slavery and flights to freedom, voting rights, voter suppression and disenfranchisement, segregation, civil rights, prejudice, discrimination, activism and protest movements.
Ethnic Newswatch (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
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Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The database now also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.
Issues & Controversies In American History This link opens in a new window
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Journals, magazines, and newspapers throughout history to the present. Includes information from government sites such as the Library of Congress and historical societies.
America: History and Life with Full Text (EBSCOHost) This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly journals, professional journals, and magazines on the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present.
Alexander Street Video (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
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Online streaming of academic related videos.
eHRAF World Cultures This link opens in a new window
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Cross-cultural and ethnographic database that contains descriptive information on all aspects of cultural and social life. The information is organized by cultures and ethnic groups.

Getting Citations from Library Databases

Check out our full list of video tutorials!

Online Museum Exhibits

Libraries and museums all over the world now offer digitized collections, so you can see historical and artistic treasures from where you are. Explore some of these online exhibitions of Black history:

Watch hundreds of Black movies with the Black Film Archive, which lists films (by decade and by genre) and where they are available for streaming.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture has many online exhibitions. Explore military history, hip-hop, Black cinema, and more. And check out the Museum's family history initiatives -- they'll help you document and preserve your own family's story.

The Library of Congress has many collections of African-American historical content:

The personal papers of Frederick Douglass
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 - 1938
Sound recordings of "Voices Remembering Slavery" (Bonus: Zora Neale Hurston did some of the interviews!)
Jackie Robinson's rookie year
Records of the Civil Rights Movement

UC Berkeley's online collections include:

The Oakland Public Library has over a thousand photos by E. F. Johnson, the Bay Area's first professional Black photographer. There are wonderful personal photos, portraits, and all sorts.

The New York Public Library's online collections have almost a million items. Here are a few categories:

Read the diary entries of Emilie Davis, who lived in Philadelphia during the Civil War. She kept pocket diaries from 1863 - 1865, which have been digitized.

Storycorps has a special collection of Black stories. You can add to the collection by recording your relatives!

The Amistad Research Center is an independent archive that offers open access to its collections. Check out the list of digital projects!

The National Underground Railroad History Center has four lovely digital exhibits.

Relevant ebooks

The library offers a wide variety of books, ebooks, and articles about African-American experience and history. Here are just a few selected titles, available with the click of a mouse. Find much more through the library catalog, especially with the Black History Collection.

Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life by Marcus Anthony Hunter; Zandria F. Robinson
From Central District Seattle to Harlem to Holly Springs, Black people have built a dynamic network of cities and towns where Black culture is maintained, created, and defended. But imagine--what if current maps of Black life are wrong?
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it.
African Americans and the First Amendment by Timothy C. Shiell
The first detailed examination of African Americans and First Amendment rights, from the colonial era to the present.
Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity by Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar
In the 1960s and 70s, the two most important black nationalist organizations, the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party, gave voice and agency to the most economically and politically isolated members of black communities outside the South. Though vilified as fringe and extremist, these movements proved to be formidable agents of influence during the civil rights era, ultimately giving birth to the Black Power movement.
Encyclopedia of the Black Arts by Davis Mitchell
The Black Arts Movement (BAM) encompassed a group of artists, musicians, novelists, and playwrights whose work combined innovative approaches to literature, film, music, visual arts, and theatre. With a heightened consciousness of black agency and autonomy-along with the radical politics of the civil rights movement, the Black Muslims, and the Black Panthers-these figures represented a collective effort to defy the status quo of American life and culture.
Black Oscars: From Mammy to Minny, What the Academy Awards Tell Us about African Americans by Frederick Gooding
It is only recently that movements such as #OscarsSoWhite have raised awareness around the more complicated legacy of the Oscars and African American participation in film. This timely book draws on American, African American, and film history to reflect on how the Oscars have recognized blacks from the award’s inception to the present. Starting in the 1920s, the chapters provides a thorough analysis and overview of any black actors nominated for their Hollywood roles during each decade.
The Lost Education of Horace Tate by Vanessa Siddle Walker
An ambitious and harrowing account of the devoted black educators who battled southern school segregation and inequality. For two years an aging Dr. Horace Tate—a former teacher, principal, and state senator—told Emory University professor Vanessa Siddle Walker about his clandestine travels on unpaved roads under the cover of night, meeting with other educators and with Dr. King, Georgia politicians, and even U.S. presidents...
We Return Fighting by Kinshasha Holman Conwill (Editor)
This stunning book presents artifacts, medals, and photographs alongside powerful essays that together highlight the efforts of African Americans during World War I.
Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement by Cathleen D. Cahill
From social clubs in New York's Chinatown to conferences for Native American rights, and in African American newspapers and pamphlets demanding equality for Spanish-speaking New Mexicans, a diverse cadre of extraordinary women struggled to build a movement that would truly include all women, regardless of race or national origin. In Recasting the Vote, Cathleen D. Cahill tells the powerful stories of a multiracial group of activists who propelled the national suffrage movement toward a more inclusive vision of equal rights.
Dear Justyce by Nic Stone
. An incarcerated teen writes letters to his best friend about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system. An unflinching look into the tragically flawed practices and silenced voices in the American juvenile justice system.
All That She Carried by Tiya Miles
A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft an extraordinary testament to people who are left out of the archives.

Ashley's sack, documented in All That She Carried. Photo: Middleton Place

Free To Use

Libraries and museums also make special collections of images that are in the public domain and not only free for you to explore, but also free for you to use and remix as you please in your own work. In this box, you'll find collections you know you can reuse.

The Library of Congress has collections of images that are free to use and reuse. (We highlight a couple here but check them all out!)

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History has an incredible variety of themed collections that are free to use under a CC0 license.

photo credit

"Sharecropper's Masterpiece." This modified strip quilt with nine blocks was pieced by Avis Collins Robinson in the style of Gee's Bend, Alabama, quilts. It was quilted by Mensie Lee Pettway and Andrea Pettway Williams. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.