Earlham Libraries Home: All African American Studies: Reference

Online Biographical Sources

Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window
Brief biographical information about a number of well-known people.
Offers the in-depth, original profiles from the Current Biography and World Authors series, the thorough periodical coverage of Biography Index and the specialist biographical content of Junior Authors & Illustrators. It provides biographical full-text articles, page images and abstracts from today’s leading magazines and journals.
Biography Reference Source This link opens in a new window
Full text biographies on notable people.
This database offers a collection of full-text biographies and unique narrative biographies. Including coverage for several of the most popular and heavily-researched biographies and genres, including those contained within Biography Today and Biography (both dating back to the first issue published).
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
The academic alternative to Wikipedia! Pulls articles from a wide range of encyclopedias and dictionaries written by subject experts.
The academic alternative to Wikipedia! Provides access to nearly 500 encyclopedias and dictionaries. Search by concept map. Includes thousands of searchable images.

Digital Archives

Black Authors, 1556-1922 This link opens in a new window
Works by black writers in a variety of genres, including personal narratives, autobiographies, histories, expedition reports, military reports, novels, essays, poems, and musical compositions.
Includes more than 550 fully catalogued and searchable works by black authors from the Americas, Europe and Africa. It contains wide-ranging genres, including personal narratives, autobiographies, histories, expedition reports, military reports, novels, essays, poems and musical compositions.
Black Drama: Third Edition This link opens in a new window
Plays by black dramatists from 1850-present.
Contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from north America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.
Black Studies in Video This link opens in a new window
Documentaries, interviews, and archival footage relating to black culture and the black American experience.
An award-winning black studies portfolio that brings together seminal documentaries, powerful interviews, and previously unavailable archival footage surveying the black experience. The collection contains 500 hours of film covering African American history, politics, art and culture, family structure, gender relationships, and social and economic issues. The collection includes documentaries on leading artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, and performers.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Non-fiction writing by black Americans
Black Thought and Culture contains 1,303 sources with 1,210 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents covering the history of the slave trade, 1600s-1800s.
Contains more than five million cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts, and maps from many different countries covering the history of the slave trade from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Material published through partnerships with more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
Legal materials on slavery in the U.S. & the English-speaking world.
This continuously growing library contains legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. Includes: every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery; hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slavery; every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920; more than a thousand pamphlets and books on slavery from the 19th century; modern histories of slavery and a section containing all modern law review articles on the subject.

Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450 by Thomas Benjamin
ISBN: 9780028658438
Publication Date: 2006
The overseas empires of Western Europe, including the US first as colony then as colonizer, is deemed here to have ended in the middle to late 20th century. Over 400 articles provide information about such aspects as economic concepts and ideas, explorations and migrations, industries, organizations and institutions, people and peoples, religions,

Reference Materials

Encyclopedia of African and African-American Religions by Stephen D. Glazier
ISBN: 0415922453
Publication Date: 2001
This important new reference covers African and African-American religion in sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South America, and the Caribbean, and provides vital insights into its growing worldwide influence in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. Entries encompass individuals, concepts, specific religions, religious movements and churches, and include: Akan, Aladura, Azusa Street Mission, Black theology, candomble, Dominican vodun, the Harrist movement, Jamaa, Macumba, Mission des Noirs, Mt. Sinai Holy Church, Nuer, Pentecostalism, Pocomania, Santería, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Unification Church, Yoruba, and many more. Photos, illustrations, and source material round out the package.
Encyclopedia of American Race Riots by Walter C. Rucker; James Nathaniel Upton Award-winning and "Boston Globe" bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan presents a spine-chilling, heart-wrenching suspense novel that explores a terrifying scenario striking at the heart of every family. Does a respected adoption agency have a frightening secret? Tipped off by a determined ex-colleague on a desperate quest to find her birth mother, Boston newspaper reporter Jane Ryland begins to suspect that the agency is engaging in the ultimate betrayal--reuniting birth parents with the wrong children. For detective Jake Brogan and his partner, a young woman's brutal murder seems a sadly predictable case of domestic violence, one that results in two toddlers being shuttled into the foster care system. Then Jake finds an empty cradle at the murder scene. Where is the baby who should have been sleeping there? Jane and Jake are soon on a trail full of twists and turns that takes them deep into the heart of a foster care system in crisis and threatens to blow the lid off an adoption agency scandal. When the threatening phone calls start, Jane knows she is on the right track...but with both a killer at large and an infant missing, time is running out.... "The Wrong Girl" is a riveting novel of familial relationships--both known and unknown--vile greed, senseless murder, and the ultimate in deception. What if you didn't know the truth about your own family?
ISBN: 0313333009
Publication Date: 2006
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, 2nd ed. by Colin A. Palmer
ISBN: 9780028658162
Publication Date: 2005
A five-volume set and supplement covering all aspects of the African-American experience from 1619 to the present day. Using biographies, historical essays, and thematic pieces, many written by foremost scholars, it addresses a wide array of subjects in over 2,300 articles to define in one source the cultural roots, participation in American life, and current condition of the African-American community.
Organizing Black America by Nina Mjagkij
ISBN: 0815323093
Publication Date: 2001
With information on over 500 organizations, their founders and membership, this unique encyclopedia is an invaluable resource on the history of African-American activism. Entries on both historical and contemporary organizations include: * African Aid Society * African-Americans for Humanism * Black Academy of Arts and Letters * Black Women's Liberation Committee * Minority Women in Science * National Association of Black Geologists and Geophysicists * National Dental Association * National Medical Association * Negro Railway Labor Executives Committee * Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association * Women's Missionary Society, African Methodist Episcopal Church * and many more.
Writing African American Women by Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu Women have had a complex experience in African American culture. The first work of its kind, this encyclopedia approaches African American literature from a Women's Studies perspective. While Yolanda Williams Page's "Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers" provides biographical entries on more than 150 literary figures, this book is much broader in scope. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries on African American women writers, as well as on male writers who have treated women in their works. Entries on genres, periods, themes, characters, historical events, texts, places, and other topics are included as well. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and relates its subject to the overall experience of women in African American literature. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. African American culture is enormously diverse, and the experience of women in African American society is especially complex. Women were among the first African American writers, and works by black women writers are popular among students and general readers alike. At the same time, African American women have been oppressed, and texts by black male authors represent women in a variety of ways. The first of its kind, this encyclopedia approaches African American literature from a Women's Studies perspective, and thus significantly illuminates the African American cultural experience through literary works. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries, written by numerous expert contributors. In addition to covering male and female African American authors, the encyclopedia also discusses themes, major works and characters, genres, periods, historical events, places, and other topics. Included are entries on such authors as: ; Maya Angelou ; James Baldwin ; Frederick Douglass ; Nikki Giovanni ; June Jordan ; Claude McKay ; Ishmael Reed ; Sojourner Truth ; Phillis Wheatley ; And many others. In addition, the many works discussed include: ; "Beloved" ; "Blanche on the Lam" ; "Iknow Why the Caged Bird Sings" ; "The Men of Brewster Place" ; "Quicksand" ; "The Street" ; "Waiting to Exhale" ; And many more. The many topical entries cover: ; Black Feminism ; Black Nationalism ; Conjuring ; Children's and Young Adult Literature ; Detective Fiction ; Epistolary Novel ; Motherhood ; Sexuality ; Spirituality ; Stereotypes ; And many others. Entries relate their topics to the experience of African American women and cite works for further reading. Features and Benefits: ; Includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries. ; Draws on the work of numerous expert contributors. ; Includes a selected, general bibliography. ; Offers a range of finding aids, such as a list of entries, a guide to related topics, and an extensive index. ; Supports the literature curriculum by helping students analyze major writers and works. ; Supports the social studies curriculum by helping students use literature to understand the experience of African American women. ; Covers the full chronological range of African American literature. ; Fosters a respect for cultural diversity. ; Develops research skills by directing students to additional sources of information. ; Builds bridges between African American history, literature, and Women's Studies.
ISBN: 0313331960
Publication Date: 2006
A Companion to African-American Studies by Jane Anna Gordon; Lewis R. Gordon
ISBN: 0631235167
Publication Date: 2006
A Companion to African-American Studies is an exciting and comprehensive re-appraisal of the history and future of African American studies. Contains original essays by expert contributors in the field of African-American Studies Creates a groundbreaking re-appraisal of the history and future of the field Includes a series of reflections from those who established African American Studies as a bona fide academic discipline Captures the dynamic interaction of African American Studies with other fields of inquiry.
The African American Experience by Arvarh E. Strickland & Robert E. Weems
ISBN: 0313298386
Publication Date: 2000
Compared to the early decades of the 20th century, when scholarly writing on African Americans was limited to a few titles on slavery, Reconstruction, and African American migration, the last thirty years have witnessed an explosion of works on the African American experience. With the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s came an increasing demand for the study and teaching of African American history followed by the publication of increasing numbers of titles on African American life and history. This volume provides a comprehensive bibliographical and analytical guide to this growing body of literature as well as an analysis of how the study of African Americans has changed.