This February marks 100 years since the first national commemoration of Black history in the United States. The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History launched Negro History Week (spearheaded by Carter G. Woodson) in 1926. Sixty years later, U.S. Congress designated February as Black History Month.
Below, several UVA librarians recommend books, databases, and videos that investigate the significance of the Black experience throughout American history and beyond.
Recommended by Kristal Sergent, Associate Librarian for African American and African Studies
ProQuest One Black Studies
Scholars and students are often looking for a single platform to use when searching for materials.
ProQuest One Black Studies is a new platform that brings together primary and secondary sources, making it an invaluable resource for scholars of Africana studies.
ProQuest One Black Studies includes primary and secondary sources from the 18th century to the present, including 300 scholarly journals, 13 historical Black newspapers, and 850 videos.
The collection also includes 120 archival collections including the personal papers of prominent figures, the Black Freedom Struggle collections, and NAACP Papers.
ProQuest One Black Studies expands UVA Library’s access to ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers from seven to thirteen. New acquisitions include the Cleveland Call and Post, Kansas City Call, and Louisville Defender.
The platform also includes new features and tools that streamline research for scholars.
Easily browse historical events using the new Timelines feature. This tool quickly illustrates historical and thematic progressions in a user-friendly interface. The Topic Pages provide overviews and key resources for 120 featured individuals and 19 organizations.
Give ProQuest One Black Studies a try for your next research project! Have feedback? Email Kristal at kristal@virginia.edu with your comments and questions.
Recommendations from Keith Weimer, Research Librarian for History and Religious Studies
“Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers” by Richard S. Newman (New York University Press, 2008)
The career of Richard Allen (1760-1831), founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, is an important supplement to general histories of the American Revolutionary/Founding era like Ken Burns’ recent documentary. Newman, Professor of History at the Rochester Institute of Technology, characterizes Allen as “the nation’s first black prophetic leader,” writing that “black prophetic leadership has historically critiqued American glorification in favor of a broader vision of national salvation.” Founding Black institutions free from white control was one paradoxical but necessary strategy towards that goal. Allen also skillfully used print to publicize his aims, collaborating with white abolitionists to demand an end to the importation of slaves in 1808. Some disillusionment followed this promising victory, but Allen ended his life committed to an inclusive and fundamentally integrated vision for America based on Christian and Enlightenment principles, and influenced later Black leaders like Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The Land Was Ours: How Black Beaches Became White Wealth in the Coastal South” by Andrew Kahrl (Harvard University Press, 2012)
Kahrl’s book is a must-read history of the workings of Jim Crow and the white-dominated power structure; the vibrant culture of Black-owned resorts through the 1960s, the determination with which Black entrepreneurs, religious leaders, and consumers sought to maintain their property rights and access to leisure opportunities; and of the environmental damage wrought by beachfront development. Kahrl describes the rise of beachgoing as a leisure activity from the 1890s, the ways in which African American entrepreneurs and religious leaders sought to capitalize on this trend, and the way white neighbors and developers brought political pressure to exclude Black beachgoers and appropriate the most desirable beachfront property. The rise of integration ultimately caused Black consumers to drift towards better-capitalized, white-owned sites with better amenities, though many of the trends set in motion during Jim Crow continued.
Recommendations from Mandy Rizki, Reference Librarian
The Digital Library of the Caribbean
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library bringing together a huge variety — and number! — of historical and archival materials from more than 100 institutional partners around the Caribbean into one accessible, online collection. Searching by date reveals a snapshot of the Caribbean in time, illustrating the rich and intersecting histories across nations and communities. Use the ‘types’ browse to find materials such as newspapers, correspondence, legislation, maps, radio programs, diaries, movie posters, and so much more. I especially enjoyed browsing issues of The Bahama Herald, a short-lived but influential 19th-century Black newspaper.
Interview with University of Virginia Students by William A. Elwood (1985)
Closer to home, we encourage you to check out resources about the Black history and community here at UVA. One of these resources is this digitized video originally from 1985 highlighting Black UVA students discussing their lives, community at the University, and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. The video was created by William Elwood, a UVA professor and administrator deeply involved in integration and civil rights activism at UVA. It served as source footage for the documentary, “The Road to Brown” (California Newsreel, 1990).