The Bridgeport Public Library’s African American History web page is a comprehensive multimedia directory of online resources covering nearly 400 years of African American history.

General

• African American History Digital Library
  Directory of Online Publications, Documents, Museum.
• The African American Mosaic
  A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History & Culture
• African American Odyssey
  Rare and unique items from the Library of Congress’ vast African American collections.
• The African American Registry
  The African American Registry® is Black History that connects yesterday with Today.
• African American Web Connection
  The record of a race of indomitable people surviving the diaspora.
• African American World
  The African American World website draws from both the PBS and NPR to present history and culture in a unique interactive format including a interactive timeline.
• AFRO-Americ@’s Black History Museum
  Interactive exhibits, including The Tuskegee Airmen, Jackie Robinson, The Black Panther Party, The Million Man March, The Scottsboro Boys, and more
• Black Facts Online
  Black history information
• Black History Quest
  African American History, Culture, and Black Studies Resources
• Blacks in Government
  African-American Information
• Britannica Guide to Black History
  The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to Black History
• Guide to African American Documentary Resources
  Cornell University Library’s annotated listing of resources dealing with African American history.
• National Archives and Records Administration
  Black History pages. Includes links to slavery, the reconstruction, segregation, and the civil rights era

Arts & Culture

• African American History Through the Arts
• African Americans in Motion Pictures
  The past and the present
• African Americans in the Visual Arts
  A Historical Perspective
• Dance in America: Free to Dance
  Explore the “Free To Dance” Web companion, which offers information about the PBS series, a dance timeline, essays on dance history and the African American contribution to modern dance, biographies of notable dance personalities, links to relevant dance resources online, and more.
• Gee’s Bend: Quilts and Plantations, Pettways and Bendolphs!
  Many of the members of the Bendolph and Pettway families of Bridgeport, Connecticut had their roots in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, which is famous for the quilts its women produce. A Central High School (Bridgeport, CT) web site.
  For more information see: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend Audio.
• The Harlem Renaissance
  Brought to you by John Carroll University- A multimedia Renaissance.
• National Museum of African American History and Culture
  This museum within the Smithsonian Institution is devoted to the documentation of African American life, art, history and culture.
• Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture
  A New York Public Library Site
• A Brief History of the Blues
• A Brief History of Jazz

Arts & Culture links from The African American Registry®

• Film/TV
  Black actors, directors, producers, and writers within the industry.
• Music
  Composers, musicians, and singers who have contributed to this Black genre.
• Theater/the Arts
  Those who serve as Black examples in painting, sculptor, stage performance, and more.
• Literature
  Blacks who influence the written word, novelist, poets, playwrights, etc.

Science & Technology

• The African American Registry - Business
  Contains the history of Black company’s and presidents, Black entrepreneurs, social clubs, Black inventors and patents. We include Black hospitals, medicine and Black newspapers, Black banks, Black towns, Black millionaires, Black architects, Black photographers, Black journalist, publishers, scientists, Black doctors, and Black nurses.
• African Americans in the SciencesA
  African American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science.
• Black History Month - A Medical Perspective
  A Duke University Medical Center Library Site – People, Medical Education, Hospitals, Chronology of Achievements, Selective Bibliography
• Black Inventors A-Z
• Mathematicians of the Black Diaspora

Labor

• African American Labor History Links
  An outstanding comprehensive directory of African American Labor History Links from AFSME.
• Black Workers
  African American Labor History links from UC Berkeley.
• Milestones in Black History
  A concise timeline of important events in African American Labor history provided by Communications Workers of America Local 4319
• Portraits of Blacks
  Portraits of Blacks & Labor sponsored by ChickenBones Education, Arts, and Literary Society, Inc (CEALS, Inc.).
• A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum
  A Chicago-based museum documenting the history of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African American labor union to win a collective bargaining contract. Website incudes online exhibit and background history.
• Rearview Mirror: Mr. Ford, blacks and the UAW
  The role of African American workers at the Ford Motor Company sponsored by the Detroit News.
• World History Archives: African American working-class history
  An online resource guide compiled by the Hartford Web Company.

Military

• African Americans in the US Army
  This section of the official US Army site highlights African American service. It discusses notable African-American officers and units and key events.
• Real African American Heroes
  A website dedicated to all African Americans who over the years have made a difference.
• The American Revolution’s Black Soldiers
  A comprehensive essay and links to other related sites.
• Freedom Fighters: United States Colored Troops in the Civil War
  A comprehensive directory of sites about African Americans who fought in the American Civil War.
• Buffaloesoldier.net
  The mission of the Buffalo Soldier Network is to honor the memory of Buffalo Soldiers - African-American regiments within the U.S. Army after the Civil War - in historical, educational, and genealogical perspectives.
• Tuskegee Airmen
  Web site of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc.® A foundation dedicated to preserving the history of America’s first black military airmen.
• Korean War
  Black Combat Units in Korean War Action.

Sports

• African Americans in the Sports Arena
  Highlights early pioneer African Americans in the sports arena
• Black Baseball’s Negro Baseball Leagues
  Extensive site dedicated to the players before Jackie Robinson’s days
• Jackie Robinson and other Baseball Highlights 1860-1960
  The special presentation called Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson, 1860s-1960s draws on approximately thirty items–manuscripts, books, photographs, and ephemera–from many parts of the Library of Congress.

Slavery

• The African American: A Journey from Slavery to Freedom
  The African-American: A Journey from Slavery to Freedom is an exhibit which shows America in crisis and how that point in time was resolved.
• African American Voices
  A comprehensive chronological history of slavery in America.
• Africans in America
  From PBS online. Originally based on the PBS television series
• Death or Liberty Exhibition
  Exhibition from the Library of Virginia covering Gabriel’s Conspiracy in 1800, Nat Turner’s Rebellion of 1831 and the Harpers Ferry raid of 1859 - includes a selection of transcribed and digitized documents
• Freedom’s Journal
  This project by the Wisconsin Historical Society to digitized all 103 issues of the first African American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States (1827-1829).
• Slavery in the United States
  This Spartacus site contains slave accounts, details of the slave system, slave life and the antislavery movement.

Slavery and the Courts

• Slaves and the Courts: 1740-1860
  A library of Congress site containing just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States
• The Amistad Case
  Full text of the Amistad decision plus links to other relevant primary source documents from the National Archives.
• The Dred Scott Case
  Collection of 85 digitized and transcribed St. Louis Circuit Court records that document the Scotts’ early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation.
• Nat Turner - The Last Should Be First
  In response to questions from a white lawyer named Thomas R. Gray, Nat Turner explains why he led his revolt against slavery.
• Slave Code for the District of Columbia
  This printed slavery code was published on March 17, 1862, just one month before slavery in the District ended and the laws became of historical interest only.

Slave Narratives

• Born in Slavery
  Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938
• North American Slave Narratives
  Documents the individual and collective story of the African American struggle for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries.

Underground Railroad

• Undergroundrailroad.org
  Comprehensive web site on the underground Railroad.
• National Geographic Online
  National Geographic presents the Underground Railroad
• Flight to Freedom Game
  “Flight to Freedom,” allows “players” to experience slavery through the eyes of those who lived it.
• Connecticut Freedom Trail
  The Freedom Trail has been preserved in history, recognizing the importance to Connecticut of numerous sites in the state that are associated with the heritage and movement towards freedom of its African American Citizens.

Civil Rights Movement

• Toward Racial Equality:
  Text and Imagery Found Within the Pages of Harper’s Weekly Magazine 1857-1874.
• History of Jim Crow
  Explore the complex African American experience of segregation from the 1870’s through the 1950’s.
• Early Civil Rights Struggles
  (1945-1955)
• The Civil Rights Movement
  (1955-1965)
• School Integration
  (1955-1975)
• Brown v. Board of Education
  National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.
• Civil Rights Movement Veterans
  First hand accounts of Civil Rights workers in the Southern Freedom Movement during the 1960s.
• The National Civil Rights Museum
  The Museum offers an overview of the civil rights movement in exhibit form.
• Powerful Days in Black and White
  The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore
• We Shall Overcome
  Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement

Historically Important Modern Civil Rights Organizations

• Black Panther Party
  This Spartacus website looks at the history of the Black Panther movement and includes biographies of leading figures such as Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown and Bobby Hutton.
• Congress of Racial Equality - CORE
  Congress of Racial Equality. Founded in 1942, CORE is the third oldest and one of the “Big Four” civil rights groups in the United States.
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - NAACP
  For more than ninety-three years, the NAACP has been built on the individual and collective courage of thousands of people. People of all races, nationalities and religious denominations, who were united on one premise –that all men and women are created equal.
• National Urban League
  The Urban League is the nation’s oldest and largest community-based movement empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream.
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference - SCLC
  Based in Atlanta, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was established with the goal of redeeming “the soul of America” through nonviolent resistance. Its main objective was to coordinate nonviolent protests throughout the South. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as president of SCLC from its founding in 1957 until his death in 1968.
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - SNCC
  This Spartacus website looks at the history of SNCC and includes biographies of leading figures such as John Lewis and Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)

Black Migration

• African American Migration
• In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
  Through images, maps, narratives and music, the exhibition presents, chronicles, and interprets the migratory movements that have formed and transformed the African-American community and the nation in the last century. Presented by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
• Migration: African American Mosaic (Library of Congress)
• The Shifting Pattern Of Black Migration From and Into the Nonmetropolitan South, 1965-95
• The New Great Migration: Black Americans’ Return to the South - 1965-2000
• The Black Population in the United States
  Current and Historical statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau
• African-American Affairs Commission Resources
  Links to Connecticut African-American Health Statistics, Connecticut African-American Demographics and much more.

Black History Month

• Black History: Exploring African American Issues
  Web-based activities for students.
• Black History Month
  Free Resources from Gale’s Black History Month Resource Book.
• Internet African American History Challenge
  An interactive quiz that helps you sharpen your knowledge of African American History
• Noble: North of Boston Library Exchange
  A collection of Black History Month links from Noble: North of Boston Library Exchange

Biographies & Bibliographies

• African American Biographical Resources
  Black History Month Biographies from the Gale Group
• The HistoryMakers.com - African American History Archive
  Stories of African American success and achievement.
• Fannie Lou Hamer
  A leading figure in the organization of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
• African American Bibliographies
• Jesse Jackson
  The Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson: A Biography of Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader and minister from PBS Frontline.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
  Biographical Outline of Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. from The King Center
• Remembering Coretta and Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project
  The King Papers Project is a major research effort to assemble and disseminate historical information concerning Martin Luther King, Jr. and the social movements in which he participated.
• Barack H. Obama
  US Senator (Senate Office)
• Collin Powell
  Soldier and Statesman
• Condolezza Rice
  Secretary of State
• The Rosa Parks Portal
  The Rosa Parks Portal is intended to be the web resource directory for all Rosa Parks sites online.
• Harriet Tubman
  Harriet Tubman’s Life.
• Malcolm X
  Created and maintained by the university of Toledo Africana Studies program.

Multimedia

• African American History Online Speech Bank
  African American History audio files from American Rhetoric
• African American Resources
  RE-LIVE SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS IN HISTORY, LISTEN TO Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering his “I have a dream” speech at the March on Washington, 1963. and other important audio and video material. This site also contains an excellent comprehensive index of African American history sites.
• A Biography of America - The Annenberg/CPB Channel
  The Coming of the Civil War, Slavery, The Fifties, The Sixties, Vital Progressivism, Thought-provoking debates and lectures—using first-person narratives, photos, film footage, and documents—will encourage you to think critically about the forces that have shaped America.
• Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
  First hand accounts from Birmingham Alabama Civil Rights Movement Veterans.
• The Greensboro Sit-Ins
  The launch of a Civil Rights Movement – photos, audio and video
• The History Channel - Black History Month
  Speeches, videos and more.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. - Frequently Requested Documents and Audio Clips from the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project
• NPR AUDIO
  National Public Radio interviews from Black History Month 2003.
• The Quilts of Gee’s Bend
  For generations, the families from a small African American community in Boykin, Alabama called Gee’s Bend have migrated to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Audio from S. Michelle Raiyn.
  For more information see Gee’s Bend: Quilts and Plantations, Pettways and Bendolphs! A Central High School (Bridgeport, CT) web site.
• Radio Fights Jim Crow
  During the World War Two years, a series of groundbreaking radio programs tried to mend the deep racial and ethnic divisions that threatened America. At a time when blacks were usually shown on the radio as lazy buffoons, the federal government and civil rights activists used radio for a counter attack. Did radio unify America in the face of war? This is “Radio Fights Jim Crow”.
• Voices From the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories
  This site provides the opportunity to listen to former slaves describe their lives. These interviews, conducted between 1932 and 1975, capture the recollections of twenty-three identifiable people born between 1823 and the early 1860s and known to have been former slaves.