Black History Month: Articles and Databases

Developed with the guidance of African American librarians and subject specialists, The African American Experience has the widest depth and breadth of information available of any online database collection on African American history and culture.

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. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.

This site is a curated selection of primary sources for teaching and learning about the struggles and triumphs of Black Americans. Developed with input from Black history scholars and advisors, this resource is freely available on the web and to libraries. The site will include more than 2,000 curated documents around six crucial phases of the U.S. Black freedom struggle. Each time period features an overview plus organized information and links to primary source documents about the relevant people, places, related government documents.

A bibliographical site with links to articles, podcasts, and films about the Black origins of traditional and popular music dating from the 18th century to present day.

A landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders - teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures - covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trail transcripts. The ideas of nearly 100 people present an evolving and complex view of what it is to be black in America.

This database, from The Institute for Composer Diversity, contains the profiles of composers from historically excluded groups who have consented to be represented.

For social science, history and liberal arts coursework, this collection explores cultural differences, contributions and influences in our global community. This set includes more than 150 journals.

The New Play Exchange, a National New Play Network project, is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers. Designed and built with the needs of the entire new play sector in mind, the New Play Exchange serves writers, producers, directors, artistic directors, literary managers, dramaturgs, publishers, agents, actors, professors, students, and even fans of the theater.

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