LTC Library: Black History Month: Primary Sources

Audio

Remembering Slavery by Ira Berlin (Editor); Marc Favreau (Editor); Steven F. Miller (Editor)
Call Number: E444 .R46 1998
ISBN: 9781565844254
Publication Date: 1998-10-01
Early in the 1930s interviewers from the Federal Writers' Project combed the American South in search of former slaves. The interviewers spoke with hundreds of elderly people about their experiences in slavery, and preserved the voices of some of them on primitive recording devices. The nearly-inaudible recordings were placed in the Library of Congress, unheard by the general public, but now, remastered with the aid of modern technology, they offer the only known opportunity to hear the voices of former slaves.

African Americans at War: Fighting Two Battles
From the Library of Congress, Veterans History Project Collection: For many veterans, serving in the military meant pushing past their own physical and mental limits in order to defeat the enemy. Many African American veterans also had to contend with and break through the limits placed upon them by society. Whether they fought stateside or overseas, in integrated or segregated units, or during World War II, Korea, or Vietnam, the African American veterans profiled here persisted past prejudice to serve their country with honor.
A People's History of Harlem: A Harlem Neighborhood Oral History Project
Listen to conversations celebrating black history and culture from Harlem residents to scholars and intellectuals across the African Diaspora.
Wisconsin Sound Archive
From Recollection Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Sound Archive is an ongoing effort to digitize and make the audio heritage from and about the state of Wisconsin available to the public online. Recordings will span the state of Wisconsin and include traditional oral histories or historical reminiscences; captured events, such as speeches and conferences; limited commercial recordings, such as radio and advertising; interviews; environmental recordings, and more.
Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories
The recordings of former slaves in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-two interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement.

Newspapers

Frederick Douglass Newspapers, 1847 to 1874
This online collection presents newspapers edited by Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), the African American abolitionist who escaped slavery and became one of the most famous orators, authors, and journalists of the 19th century.
Invictus
The Invictus, launched in 1977, was published by the UWM Black Student Union (BSU), giving voice to the University’s African American student body with news features, profiles, and poetry.
The Northwestern Recorder
This was an African American newspaper published in Milwaukee, WI, from 1892-1893.
Wisconsin Afro-American
This was an African American newspaper published in Milwaukee, WI, in 1892.
Wisconsin Labor Advocate
The Wisconsin Labor Advocate was a weekly newspaper published in La Crosse in 1886-1887. La Crosse was a hotbed of Labor political party activity in the 1880s and the Labor Advocate was one of at least four La Crosse area Labor-related newspapers from that time. George Edwin Taylor, the newspaper’s editor and owner, was African-American, born in Arkansas in 1857.
The Wisconsin Weekly Blade
The Wisconsin Weekly Blade was published from 1916 to 1925 and was the first African American newspaper in Madison, WI. Available online through the Library of Congress.

Images

African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition
The Paris Exposition of 1900 (Exposition universelle internationale de 1900) devoted a building to matters of "social economy." The United States section of the building featured an exhibit that, according to W. E. B. Du Bois, attempted to show "(a) The history of the American Negro. (b) His present condition. (c) His education. (d) His literature."
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA).
Freedom Summer Digital Collection
The Wisconsin Historical Society has one of the richest collections of Civil Rights movement records in the nation, which includes more than 100 manuscript collections documenting the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964.
Images of African American Women Changemakers
This set of images from the Library of Congress features African American women educators, activists, artists, and more.
Images of the African Diaspora
Images from the UW-Madison Digital Collection. Dates range from the 1970s to the 1990s.
March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project
From Recollection Wisconsin: Primary sources from the UW-Milwaukee Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society that provide a window onto Milwaukee’s civil rights history in the 1960s. The efforts of civil rights activists and their opponents are documented in photographs, unedited news film footage, text documents and oral history interviews.
Photographs and Print Division Digital Collection
From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: The Photographs and Prints Division contains both documentary and fine art photographs, which document the history and culture of people of African descent worldwide as well as the work of photographers of African descent. The collection of over 300,000 images ranges from mid-eighteenth century graphics to contemporary documentary and art photography; all of the major photographic processes are represented.

Picture from the Library of Congress's Images of African American Women Changemakers collection.

Junior normal class of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, seated on steps outside of building [Photograph]. (1890-1906). Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c12357/?st=image