Research Guides: African-American Studies: Primary sources

Primary Sources

Primary sources are those sources of information closest to a person, event, or particular time period. They are original sources of information, which have not been edited or analyzed by later scholars. Some examples of primary sources include:

autobiographies
diaries/personal narratives
letters/correspondence
memoirs
documents/sources
photographs
statistics
newspaper articles from the time period
and works of art (novels, poems, paintings, etc.)

To find primary sources at Grafton, try combining your subject keyword with types of primary sources, like "letters", "autobiograph*," or "personal narratives."

History Microform Collection

Grafton's Microform Collection is located in the Periodicals Room on the first floor. Please ask a librarian if you need help finding the microform and using the machines.

List of microform collection in Grafton

Newspaper Databases

Virginia's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window Full text newspapers from the state of Virginia covering the time of colonial development to World War I.

Chronicling America This site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1860-1922 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. The data is open and can be used outside of the platform.

Harper's Weekly, 1857-1877 This link opens in a new window Historic newspaper, including illustrations, advertisements, and news stories.

Historical Newspapers Online
From the University of Pennsylvania: a list of historical newspapers available for free online. Listed by state.

Primary documents

FBI Vault This FBI website includes primary source documents from the FBI files and includes a category for the Civil Rights.

African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle, 1865-1883 This link opens in a new window Documents covering the lives of African Americans in the years following the Civil War

North American Slave Narratives "North American Slave Narratives" collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of Black people struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries.
Digital Library on American Slavery The Digital Library on American Slavery (DLAS) is an expanding resource compiling independent collections focused upon race and slavery in the American South.
Library of Congress Digital Collections Access online collections: view maps & photographs; read letters, diaries & newspapers; hear personal accounts of events; listen to sound recordings & watch historic films.
Virginia Memory Digital collection provided by the Library of Virginia including photographs, Virginia newspapers, maps, and public records.
U.S. National Archives Photostream Documents and Photographs digitized and uploaded to Flickr.
African American History
Links to primary sources in African American history. From the University of Washington.
Teaching Hard History This collection includes more than 100 primary sources selected to support teaching and learning about slavery
Voices from the Southern Civil Rights Movement "Voices from the Southern Civil Rights Movement" presents educational and noncommercial radio programs from the 1950s and 1960s that offer historic testimonies – in interviews, speeches, and on-the-spot news reports – from many movement participants, both well-known and unknown.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States This free collection centers on the experiences and perspectives of African Americans, to provide a deeper understanding of the humanity of those who have pursued the quest for freedom, and the significance of movements like Black Lives Matter.