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Primary and selected secondary sources for research in African American Studies at Princeton University.

Digital sources

Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League

The National Negro Business League was a business organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900 by Booker T. Washington, with the support of Andrew Carnegie. The mission and main goal of the National Negro Business League was "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro." The organization was formally incorporated in 1901 in New York, and established 320 chapters across the United States.  Date range: 1901-1928

The Black Liberation Army and the Program of Armed Struggle (BLA) was an underground, black nationalist-Marxist militant organization that operated from 1970 to 1981. Composed largely of former Black Panthers (BPP), the organization’s program was one of "armed struggle" and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States." The BLA carried out a series of bombings, robberies (what participants termed "expropriations"), and prison breaks.Date range: 1970-1983

Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement: The Papers of Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford)  This collection of RAM records reproduces the writings and statements of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and its leaders. It also covers organizations that evolved from or were influenced by RAM and persons that had close ties to RAM. The most prominent organization that evolved from RAM was the African People’s Party. Organizations influenced by RAM include the Black Panther Party, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Youth Organization for Black Unity, African Liberation Support Committee, and the Republic of New Africa. Individuals associated with RAM and documented in this collection include Robert F. Williams, Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, General Gordon Baker Jr., Yuri Kochiyama, Donald Freeman, James and Grace Lee Boggs, Herman Ferguson, Askia Muhammad Toure (Rolland Snellings), and Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael). Date range:  1962-1999

The NAACP Papers collection consists of 6 modules. The NAACP Papers collections contains internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. It charts the NAACP's work and delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues. With a timeline that runs from 1909 to 1972, the NAACP Papers document the realities of segregation in the early 20th century to the triumphs of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and beyond.The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century consists of four modules: two modules of Federal Government Records, and two modules of Organizational Records and Personal Papers, offering unique documentation and a variety of perspectives on the 20th century fight for freedom. Major collections in these modules include Civil Rights records from the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush presidencies; the Martin Luther King FBI File and FBI Files on locations of major civil rights demonstrations like Montgomery and Selma, Alabama or St. Augustine, Florida; and the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

NAACP Papers: Board of Directors, Annual Conferences, Major Speeches, and National Staff Files  

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NAACP Papers: Branch Department, Branch Files, and Youth Department Files  

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NAACP Papers: Special Subjects  Search this Module  Browse Collections

NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Education, Voting, Housing, Employment, Armed Forces  

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NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Legal Department Files  Search this Module  Browse Collections

NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Scottsboro, Anti-Lynching, Criminal Justice, Peonage, Labor,

and Segregation and Discrimination Complaints and Responses 

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Organizations

*Printed guides to accompany microfilm are housed in Microform Services on A-floor in Firestone Library.


American Civil Liberties Union Archives

American Missionary Association Archives

American Negro Historical Society Collection, 1790-1905

Reproduces a variety of materials that illustrate the black experience in the 19th and 20th centuries, chiefly in Philadelphia.

Archives of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, 1942-1976

The collection is the complete records of the Race Relations Department, comprised of correspondence, research data, records of the self-surveys, news releases and newspaper clippings, photographs, and the records of the Institutes, which contain registers of participants, manuscript copies of lectures, reports of workshops and other records.

Black Academy of Arts and Letters Records, 1968-1980

Cultural organization founded in 1969 to recognize outstanding Blacks in the fields of arts and letters.  Files of the Board of Directors containing correspondence, agendas, minutes, and records of three board committees. Administrative records including material on the founding of the Academy, nominations for awards, and records relating to daily operations, including correspondence, memoranda, financial papers, and mailing list. Annual meeting files which encompass planning and programming for annual meetings, 1970-1972, and related correspondence, programs, transcripts of meetings, and financial records. 

COINTELPRO: the Counterintelligence Program of the FBI

Communist Party of the USA--Hoodwink (reels 1-17)--New left, Socialists Workers Party (reels 18-21)--Black nationalist hate groups(reels 22-25)--Special operations file, Espionage file (reel 26)--Nationalist groups (reel 27)--White hate groups (reels 28-30). “FBI files on various groups such as: Communist Party, White hate groups, African American nationalist hate groups, nationalist groups and other organizations.”

Commission on Interracial Cooperation Papers, 1914-1944

“The Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC) was formed in 1919 in response to these civil disturbances.  The CIC was a moderate coalition of whites and blacks, who recognized that promoting nonviolent change within the archaic Southern societal structure would in the long run better serve the cause of racial harmony.  Included in the collection is correspondence, minutes of CIC meetings, pamphlets and reports, and CIC educational material.” The CIC was to become the Southern Regional Council in 1944.

Communist infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and J. Edgar Hoover’s Official Confidential File on Martin Luther King, Jr.

Congress of Racial Equality, Papers

“Strategies, tactics and ideologies of CORE are documented in these papers. Internal records, reports, project files, correspondence, convention notes, newsletters and other information related to civil rights organizations are included.”

Detroit Urban League Papers, 1916-1950, at the University of Michigan

Freedmen’s Aid Society Records, 1866-1932

Consists of the records of the Freedmen's Aid Society, which was established by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1866 to set up schools for African Americans in the South.

New Deal Agencies and Black America

Materials found in this collection pertain primarily to the New Deal-black experience for the years between 1933 and 1940.  Materials were drawn from the following agencies, Office of Education, National Youth Administration, Department of Interior, Civilian Conservation Corps, Department of Labor U.S. Employment Service, National Recovery Administration, Department of Commerce, and Works Progress Administration.

Papers of the Civil Rights Congress

History Vault

includes papers of 

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 

Congress of Racial Equality 

NAACP 

National Association of Colored Women's Clubs

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

 

Papers of the National Negro Congress, 1933-1947

Records of the National Negro Business League

Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union Papers, 1934-1970

“A collection consisting of correspondence, reports, press releases, legal documents, pamphlets, and other materials. It documents the formation of the union and its activities to improve the lot of sharecroppers, tenant farmers, small landowners and migratory farm workers; its relations with government agencies, and other unions/organizations.”

Universal Negro Improvement Association, Records of the Central Division, New York, 1918-1959

Collection also contains records related to organizations affiliated with the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) including Garvey Clubs, and the Pan-African Community League, among others.

Universal Negro Improvement Association Records, 1921-1986

Correspondence, reports, conference proceedings, speeches, minute and ledger books, membership certificates, and much more relating to the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914 as a philanthropic and fraternal ogranization to promote pan-Africanism, the UNIA developed into a radical political group that advocated repatriation to Africa, among other things. The major portion of this collection dates from the period 1940-1950.