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African American Literature Resources

This guide contains books, periodicals and databases in Buley Library as well as web sites on African American Literature.

Internet Sites

African American Literature Book Club
This is a site dedicated to books by and about African Americans. Profiles of many authors, reviews of books, a discussion board, tips for writers, and a literary events calendar are the major links on this site.

African American Literature Online
This site serves as a comprehensive guide to African American Literature of the twentieth century. Several novels, poems, autobiographies, and essays along with summaries are provided along with significant events of each decade and the literary themes that African American authors were writing about during that decade.

The African American Mosaic
This is a resource guide compiled by the Library of Congress for the study of black history and culture.

American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology
The narratives are part of the hypertext project at the University of Virginia.

Black Past.org
This "reference center is dedicated to providing information to the general public on African American history and on the history of the more than one billion people of African ancestry around the world".

A Brief Guide to the Harlem Renaissance From Poets.Org
Poets.org offers brief biographies and poems of poets of the Harlem Renaissance.

A Celebration of Women Writers
Here's another comprehensive web site dealing with African American women writers from the digital library at UPenn.

Digital Schomburg African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century is a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg of the New York Public Library, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920. A full text database of these 19th and early 20th- century titles, this digital library is key-word-searchable.

Harlem Renaissance Guide from Duquesne University
Includes a documentary on the Harlem Renaissance - "From These Roots".

The Harlem Renaissance Guide from the Library of Congress
A comprehensive collection from the Library of Congress of African American writing, music, and art of the 1920s and 1930s.

The Harlem Renaissance - History.com
The site contains information on the great migration, important people of the Harlem Renaissance, and the impact the Renaissance had on the life and culture of African Americans.

The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research
The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research supports research on the history and culture of people of African descent the world over and provides a forum for collaboration and the ongoing exchange of ideas."

Library of Southern Literature
Documenting the American South is a digital initiative supported by UNC, Chapel Hill, and provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American History and culture. 

National Museum of African American History and Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 36,000 artifacts and nearly 100,000 individuals have become members. The Museum opened to the public on September 24, 2016, as the 19th and newest museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

Voice of the Shuttle - African American Literature
The Voice of the Shuttle is universally acclaimed as the most comprehensive  site for literary information. The section on African American literature includes general resources on the subject, the black cultural studies web site, works and projects of African American writers and links to individual authors.