Subject Guide
Online Resources
- VIRGO: The University of Virginia Online Library CatalogSearch the U.Va. Library's holdings, including Special Collections and many of our online resources.
The keyword searching is "Google-like," though advanced options are available. Advanced catalog searching allows user to search subject terms like "Slave trade" AND sources or slavery AND sources to more easily identify primary sources.
- ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials This link opens in a new windowLists articles on all aspects of religious studies from journals in many disciplines. Includes citations to book chapters and to book reviews. ATLASerials adds the full text of many journals.
- America: History & Life (1964-present) This link opens in a new windowCovers the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to present with records from 2,000 English-language journals published worldwide. Includes book reviews.
- Documenting the American South This link opens in a new windowPrimary sources that document the cultural history of the American South from the Southern point of view. Includes diaries, autobiographies, travel accounts, titles about slavery, and regional literature. Emphasis is on the 19th century.
- Documenting the American South: North American Slave NarrativesThis collection within Documenting the American South is of special interest. All the existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves and some significant fictionalized slave narratives published in English before 1920.
- Voices of Former SlavesConsists of 26 audio-recorded interviews with ex-slaves, capturing the stories of former slaves in their own words and voices. Freely available fom the Library of Congress
- Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915: Plantation RecordsConsists of two major components: records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, and plantation records from Emancipation to the Great Migration. The primary source documents cover business and day-to-day labor operations, as well as the roles of women, racial attitudes, slave-master relations, and social and cultural life on the plantations. Choose "Southern Life and Slavery" to enter the collection.
Many more plantation records are available from our microfilm collections in VIRGO. - ProQuest CongressionalInformation by and about the U.S. Congress: documents and reports, legislative histories, hearings, and members and committees. Formerly LexisNexis Congressional. For the period 1789-1829, it may be helpful to use as a guide The Negro in the Congressional Record, available from Hathi Trust via VIRGO.
- NAACP Papers This link opens in a new windowDigital collection of the NAACP’s archive of internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the U.S. It covers the organization’s involvement in crucial civil rights issues such as lynching, school desegregation, and discrimination in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, housing, etc.
- America's Historical Newspapers (1690-1991) This link opens in a new windowSearchable full text collection of US newspapers. For additional titles see 19th Century U.S. Newspapers.
- African American Newspapers: Part I-V This link opens in a new windowSearchable African American Newspapers.
Part I: Freedom's Journal, New York, 1827-Mar. 1829; Colored American, New York, 1837-Mar. 1840; The North Star, Rochester, NY, 1847-July 1849; National Era, Washington, DC, 1847-Dec. 1848.
Part II: Colored American, 1840-41; The North Star, July 1849-1851; Frederick Douglass’ Paper (continuation of The North Star), 1851-May 1852; National Era, 1847-Dec. 1850; Provincial Freeman, Toronto, ON, 1854-Dec. 18, 1855.
Part III: Frederick Douglass’ Paper, May 1852-Dec. 1852; National Era, Dec. 1850-Dec. 1853; Provincial Freeman, Dec. 1855-57; The Christian Recorder, Toronto, ON, 1861-April 1862.
Part IV: The Christian Recorder, May 1862-Dec. 1864; National Era, Jan. 1854-Dec. 1855; Frederick Douglass’ Paper, Jan. 1853-Dec. 1854.
Part V: The Christian Recorder, Jan. 1865-June 1868; National Era, Jan. 1856-Dec. 1857; Frederick Douglass’ Paper, Jan. 1855-Dec. 1856. - ProQuest Historical Newspapers - Black Newspapers This link opens in a new windowA subset of the larger ProQuest Historical Newspapers, this is a collection of several prominent black newspapers including the Chicago Defender, Norfolk Journal and Guide, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American, and NY Amsterdam News.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowNew York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Defender, Chicago Tribune, Norfolk Journal and Guide, Pittsburgh Courier, NY Amsterdam News, Baltimore Afro-American, Washington Post, and The Guardian & The Observer.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowFull-text of newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from 200 ethnic, minority, and native publications in the U.S., in English and in Spanish.
Oral Histories, Interviews, Diaries
- Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South This link opens in a new window" ..the largest single collection of Jim Crow-era oral histories in the world". From Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Coverage: 1890s to the 1950s. Over 175 hours of recordings. Additionally, there are over 10,000 pages of transcripts from the interviews.
- Black Leadership Project InterviewsA collection of transcripts of interviews with Virginia and national leaders from the black community, including many involved with desegregation. Interviews conducted mainly by Julian Bond. Virginia interviewees include Nikki Giovanni, poet and literature professor at Virginia Tech, Julian Bond, founding member of SNCC and a UVA professor, and Douglas Wilder, first African-American governor of Virginia.
- Civil Rights Digital LibraryFrom the University of Georgia. See links for Oral Histories and Interviews.
- Explorations in Black LeadershipStreaming video and transcripts. This site features a collection of interviews of leaders in the national black community. Conducted chiefly by Julian Bond, national chairman of the NAACP and professor of history at the University of Virginia, these oral histories focus on issues of black leadership and the transformational role of the civil rights movement in America.
- Famous Speeches of Malcom XFrom the Internet Archive.
- Martin Luther King OnlineSpeeches and audio clips
- Oral Histories at UVA - DesegregationThe Oral Histories of the University cover many involved with desegregation both in our local schools and the University:
- From the Categories list, select Desegregation and click Search (results list includes 35 records).
- You should be able to follow the listening links to the streaming audio files. First click Listen, then click Listen to entire part/track. - UC Berkeley Black Panther Party Sound Recording ProjectFrom Pacifica Radio.
- Voices of Former SlavesFrom the Library of Congress.
- William Elwood InteviewsUVA Professor and "Road to Brown" producer William Elwood conducted many interviews with Civil Rights leaders, available on streaming video through VIRGO.