African American Culture, History, & Arts: Research & Resources

Major digitized archival holdings in African American history, grouped by state.

1984 Rutgers University found historic data in a courthouse in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. Over the next 15 years, Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, a noted New Orleans writer and historian, painstakingly uncovered the background of 100,000 slaves who were brought to Louisiana in the 18th and 19th centuries making fortunes for their owners.

Poring through documents from all over Louisiana, as well as archives in France, Spain and Texas, Dr. Hall designed and created a database into which she recorded and calculated the information she obtained from these documents about African slave names, genders, ages, occupations, illnesses, family relationships, ethnicity, places of origin, prices paid by slave owners, and slaves' testimony and emancipations.

Search by title or follow the link to a collection selected for African American History Month

Nearly 5,000 titles--clips & films--on African Americans, including history, culture, work, family, psychology . . .

The AAAMC covers a range of African American musical idioms primarily from the post-World War II era, including religious, and classical music, from blues and gospel to R&B and contemporary hip hop. The AAAMC also houses extensive materials related to the documentation of black radio.