LibGuides: Africana Studies: Library Databases + Collections

Choosing a Library Database to Explore

Africana Studies is a highly interdisciplinary field, and research related to this field can be found in a wide variety of databases the library subscribes to. Included on this page are just a selection of the library databases that may be of interest for your research projects. All of these databases are included in the OneSearch feature on the library's website.

To help you select the database(s) that will be the most useful to you, read the brief descriptions provided below the links included on this page. These descriptions should help give a general overview of the types of materials included within that collection.

For a full list of the databases the library subscribes to, visit: https://library.augustana.edu/az.php.

Recommended Databases

AnthroSource This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and full-text access to peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, and bulletins from the American Anthropological Association (AAA).

Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
Indexes journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
A multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 6,300 full-text periodicals, including more than 5,700 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts to publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887.

Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers the international literature of sociology, social work, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides abstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews drawn from thousands of serials publications, plus books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers.

Finding Newspapers from the Library

Tredway Library has subscriptions to a variety of different newspaper databases that may be relevant to your research in Africana Studies. These collections include both historical newspapers and sources that are still in circulation today. The bulk of our collections are comprised of English-language newspapers from the United States, however we do subscribe to a number of collections with international papers as well.

To help you select the newspaper(s) that will be the most useful to you, read the brief descriptions provided below the links included on this page. These descriptions should help give a general overview of the types of materials included within that collection.

For a full list of the databases the library subscribes to, visit: https://library.augustana.edu/az.php. You can select 'newspapers' from the list of resource types at the top of the page.

Historical Black Newspapers

Chicago Defender (1909-2010) This link opens in a new window
Full-text coverage of the Chicago Defender, a major Black newspaper. Content includes articles, obituaries, photos, editorials in the study of the history of race relations, journalism, local and national politics, education, African American studies, and many multidisciplinary subjects. Coverage 1909-2010; for more recent articles, search Ethnic NewsWatch.

Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003) This link opens in a new window
Historical Black Newspaper provides researchers with unprecedented access to perspectives and information that was excluded or marginalized in mainstream sources. Coverage 1931-2003.

Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988) This link opens in a new window
Historical Black Newspaper provides researchers with unprecedented access to perspectives and information that was excluded or marginalized in mainstream sources. Coverage 1893-1988.

Black Freedom Website This link opens in a new window
Explore the open primary source documents from historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in U.S. history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.
Includes the following time periods:
1. Resistance to Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
2. The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
3. Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
4. The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
5. The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
6. The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)

Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press.

General Newspaper Collections

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni, the successor of LexisNexis Academic, provides full-text access to over 15,000 news, business, and legal sources.The outstanding news coverage includes deep archives and up-to-the-minute stories in national and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language news services. Use the Company Dossier module to retrieve detailed company information and financial performance measures or identify and compare companies matching specific criteria. This product also provides access to the renowned Shepard's Citations service for all federal and state court cases 1789-present.
To access Nexis Uni from off-campus, you must first register (create an account) while on campus.
1. Access Nexis Uni through the Augustana College library website (choose “Databases A-Z” from the drop-down menu at the bottom).
2. Click Sign In / Register in the top right.
3. Click Create a profile now on the right.
4. Enter your name and your Augustana email address.
5. Complete the sign-in profile.
6. After the username and password you have entered is verified, it will become active.
From off-campus, USE THIS LINK to access Nexis Uni (scroll down to find "Nexis Uni" on the landing page).
Keeping your access active: In order to keep access active, users are required to sign in from an on-campus computer or device every six months to maintain authorization.

Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window
Covers 40+ US and international newspapers

US Newsstream This link opens in a new window
News content from many national and international newspapers, newswires and selected news magazines, including the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Denver Post, USA Today, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. Coverage from 1980 to the present.

Finding Additional Primary Sources from the Library

Tredway Library has subscriptions to a variety of additional primary source databases that may be relevant to your research in Africana Studies. These collections are largely comprised of primary sources from United States history, however we do subscribe to a number of international collections as well.

To help you select the database(s) that will be the most useful to you, they have been broadly arranged on this page by time period. Please read the brief descriptions provided below the links included on this page. You may need to hover over the information icon to do so. These descriptions should help give a general overview of the types of materials included within that collection.

For a full list of the databases the library subscribes to, visit: https://library.augustana.edu/az.php. You can select 'Primary Sources' from the list of resource types at the top of the page.

Enslavement to Reconstruction

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture, and Law This link opens in a new window
Essential legal materials on the history of slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world.

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
The premier database for research on the history of the United States and Canada.

Making of America (Cornell University) This link opens in a new window
A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, comprised of books and journals. The library is divided into two distinct, searchable collections: one at Cornell University, and the other at the University of Michigan.

Making of America (University of Michigan) This link opens in a new window
A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, comprised of books and journals. The library is divided into two distinct, searchable collections: one at Cornell University, and the other at the University of Michigan.

Civil War Era Newspapers, 1840-1865 This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive primary source materials that were previously unavailable digitally, cover a vast range of topics including the formative economic factors and other forces that led to the abolitionist movement, the 600,000 casualties, and the emancipation of nearly 4 million slaves.

Records of Union Generals and the Union Army & Confederate Military Manuscripts This link opens in a new window
The collections in this module deliver unique coverage of the Union Army and the Confederate Army. Highlights include papers of spies, scouts, guides, and detectives, including a series on Allan Pinkerton; records on military discipline from courts-martial, courts of inquiry, and investigations by military commissions; and records of the U.S. Colored Troops.

Colonialism

Colonial State Papers, 1574-1757 This link opens in a new window
Offers insight into the colonial history of North America and the West Indies. It includes the National Archives collection CO 1-- papers that were presented to the Privy Council and the Board of Trade during 1574-1757.

British Periodicals (1681-2005) This link opens in a new window
This resource offers facsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the seventeenth century through to the twentieth century

Cecil Papers This link opens in a new window
This important collection includes many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century state papers, grants from the Crown, legal documents, treaties, correspondences, and political memoranda.

Civil Rights Movement

Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records This link opens in a new window The focus of the Federal Government Records module is on the political side of the freedom movement, the role of civil rights organizations in pushing for civil rights legislation, and the interaction between African Americans and the federal government in the 20th century.
Major collections in this module include the FBI Files on Martin Luther King Jr.; Centers of the Southern Struggle, an exceptional collection of FBI Files covering five of the most pivotal arenas of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s: Montgomery, Albany, St. Augustine, Selma, and Memphis; and records from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, detailing the interaction between civil rights leaders and organizations and the highest levels of the federal government.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records, Supplement This link opens in a new window This module supplements the original module of federal government records by adding civil rights records from the Ford and Reagan presidencies.
The Ford Administration records in this module consist of the subject files of J. Stanley Pottinger (Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department) and Anne R. Clarke (Special Assistant in the Research Unit of the Civil Rights Division’s Sex Discrimination Program) detailing the implementation of federal civil rights law from 1973-1977. Records from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library consist of the White House Office of Records Management Subject File on Human Rights and seven FOIA collections covering affirmative action; Bob Jones University; busing and school desegregation; civil rights; fair housing; Martin Luther King Jr. Day; and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, Grove City College and the Civil Rights Restoration Act, and the Voting Rights Act of 1982.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 1 This link opens in a new window The Organizational Records and Personal Papers module brings a new perspective to the Black Freedom Struggle via the records of major civil rights organizations and personal papers of leaders and observers of the 20th century Black freedom struggle.
The three major civil rights organizations are the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. Papers of civil rights leaders included in this module are those of the civil rights and labor leader A. Philip Randolph; the long-time civil rights activist and organizer of the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin; and the papers of the pioneering educator Mary McLeod Bethune. Through records of Claude A. Barnett’s Associated Negro Press, this module also branches out to cover other aspects of African American life in the 20th century, like religion, sports, education, fraternal organizations, and even the field of entertainment.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 2 This link opens in a new window This newest Black Freedom module is highlighted by the records of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Africa-related papers of Claude Barnett, and the Robert F. Williams Papers.
SNCC, formed by student activists in 1960 after the explosion of the sit-in movement, was one of the three most important civil rights organizations of the 1960s, alongside SCLC and the NAACP. Rounding out this module are the papers of Chicago Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell, the Chicago chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, and records pertaining to the Mississippi Freedom Summer.
Black Freedom Website This link opens in a new window Explore the open primary source documents from historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in U.S. history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.
Includes the following time periods:
1. Resistance to Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
2. The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
3. Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
4. The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
5. The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
6. The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)
Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle This link opens in a new window Features records of NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, CORE, and federal records on the Black Freedom Struggle
NAACP Papers: Board of Directors, Annual Conferences, Major Speeches, and National Staff Files This link opens in a new window This module charts the NAACP's work and delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues: lynching; school desegregation; and discrimination in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, and housing, among others. It provides a comprehensive view of the NAACP’s evolution, policies, and achievements from 1909–1970.
NAACP Papers: Branch Department, Branch Files, and Youth Department Files This link opens in a new window Chronicles the local heroes of the civil rights revolution via NAACP branches throughout the United States, from 1913-1972.
The contributions of scores of local leaders—attorneys, community organizers, financial benefactors, students, mothers, school teachers, and other participants—are revealed in these records.
NAACP Papers: Special Subjects This link opens in a new window The NAACP was involved in several subjects that did not rise to the level of major campaigns but were still vital to the organization. This module contains records on those subjects, and in so doing, reveals the wide scope of NAACP activism and interest.
NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Education, Voting, Housing, Employment, and Armed Forces This link opens in a new window Major campaigns for equal access to education, voting, employment, housing and the military are covered in this module.
The education files in this module document the NAACP’s systematic assault on segregated education that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Files from 1955-1965 focus on the NAACP’s efforts to implement the Brown decision as well as to combat de facto segregation outside of the South.
NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Legal Department Files This link opens in a new window Papers of the NAACP Legal Department from 1956-1972.
For the period from 1956-1965, this includes the working case files of the NAACP’s general counsel, Robert Carter. Among the topics covered in these cases are school desegregation, abuses of police procedure, freedom of speech, desegregation of public facilities, voting rights, housing discrimination, and employment discrimination.
NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Scottsboro, Anti-Lynching, Criminal Justice, Peonage, Labor, and Segregation and Discrimination Complaints and Responses This link opens in a new window Focuses on the NAACP’s efforts regarding anti-lynching, peonage, and discrimination in employment and the criminal justice system.
A rich set of records in this module is the NAACP file on one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the 20th century: the case of the Scottsboro boys. In this case, nine young black men were accused of raping two white women on a train in northern Alabama. Sixteen days after their arrest, eight of the nine teenagers were sentenced to death in the electric chair. All eight escaped execution when the Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Powell v. Alabama, ruled that the defendants had been inadequately represented by counsel.

Finding Videos from the Library

Tredway Library has subscriptions to several video streaming platforms that may contain videos relevant to your research. The library does also own a select number of DVD films, which you can search for using OneSearch on the library's homepage.

For a full list of the databases the library subscribes to, visit: https://library.augustana.edu/az.php. You can select 'Streaming Videos' from the list of resource types at the top of the page.

Video Streaming Services

Black Studies in Video This link opens in a new window
Streaming videos featuring award-winning documentaries, newsreels, interviews and archival footage surveying the evolution of black culture in the United States.
All programming includes public performance rights.

Ethnographic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Streaming videos of classic and contemporary documentaries in the fields of anthropology, ethnography and social psychology.
All programming includes public performance rights.

kanopy This link opens in a new window
A collection of streaming videos of movies, documentaries, foreign films, classic cinema, independent films, and educational videos.
All videos include public performance rights.
Access to these films is mediated. Please contact your liaison librarian to request access to a specific film(s) for your class.

Additional Resources from Tredway Library

Included on this page are additional miscellaneous resources provided by Tredway Library that may be of interest to your research. Please read the descriptions below each database for an overview of the content contained within.

For a full list of the databases the library subscribes to, visit: https://library.augustana.edu/az.php.

Miscellaneous Resources

Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa This link opens in a new window
The liberation of Southern Africa and the dismantling of the Apartheid regime was one of the major political developments of the 20th century, with far-reaching consequences for people throughout Africa and around the globe. Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa focuses on the complex and varied liberation struggles in the region, with an emphasis on Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Black Thought and Culture is 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, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
Focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, these unlimited-use eBooks represent topics of gender, race, sexual orientation, physical ability and religious beliefs. Use the Advanced Search and select “DEI Subscription” on the right hand side of the screen to search for books in this collection.

World Heritage Sites: Africa This link opens in a new window
The materials in World Heritage Sites: Africa serve researchers in African studies, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art history, Diaspora studies, folklore and literature, geography, and history, as well as those focused on geomatics, advanced visual and spatial technologies, historic preservation, and urban planning. The collection is also a tool for museums, libraries, NGOs, and government organizations that manage or oversee cultural heritage sites, as well as for experts and professionals engaged in the conservation and management of such sites.