National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Labor, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Selections of original accounts either written during slavery or recorded in the 1930s that depict work as a plantation laborer, house servant, shipyard worker or boatman.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: New Hope?, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
An article that critiques the early civil rights efforts of the Kennedy administration. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's effect on the lives of African Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Resistance, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Recollections of slave resistance by observers like Frederick Douglass, narratives of slave resistance collected during the Depression, and mid-nineteenth century accounts by former slaves calling for resistance to and overthrow of the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: From Negro to Black, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
A painting that expresses the darkening hopes of the civil rights movement. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's effect on the lives of African Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Runaways, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Several accounts by slaves of running away from bondage, written in the nineteenth century and also recorded in the 1930s, as well as newspaper advertisements seeking information about fugitive slaves in the eighteenth century.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Attacking Stereotypes, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Two images that express the growing militancy of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. This article explains how Joe Overstreet (1934-) and Betye Saar (1929-) went head to head with the formidable Aunt Jemima and with wit and irony...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community, Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865
Twenty nine primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore how enslaved individuals and families coped with, adjusted to, maintained communities within, and opposed the system of oppression.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Soul, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
An article that expresses the late 1960s disillusionment of the civil rights movement. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's affect on the lives of African Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Enslaved Family, Making of African American Identity: Vol. 1
This site offers two letters and a memoir from the mid-nineteenth century, and interviews from the early-twentieth century, about the importance and the roles of enslaved families.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Dubious Victory, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
An article that describes the price paid by African Americans for school desegregation. The story of six-year-old Tracy Price Thompson is described and link to her memoir is provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Plantation Community, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Various retrospective oral accounts from the early-twentieth century and two narratives from the mid-nineteenth century that examine the work, interrelationships, dangers, and lives of slaves on southern plantations.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making It, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Excerpts from a novel and an interview that illustrate where the success of the civil rights movement left some middle class African Americans. They explore the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Religion, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
A series of songs, narratives, and memoirs that examine the spiritual beliefs of and experiences with religion among slaves in southern plantation communities.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Petitions, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Three late-eighteenth-century petitions to state legislatures and one to Congress by enslaved or free African Americans seeking civil liberties. These four petitions, called "memorials", present a range of origins, goals, and outcomes.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Mutual Benefit, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Four documents establishing black mutual assistance and self-help organizations from the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. A link to each document is provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: The Black Press
Selections from a black newspaper, "The Colored American, "from 1837-1838 that detail the numerous issues and agendas confronting enslaved and free blacks.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Fugitives, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Oral and written narratives of the experiences of the Underground Railroad and documents identifying efforts by northern societies to free slaves during the 1850s.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Canada
Descriptions of fugitive slave communities in Canada and comments from those who escaped to these locations as well as welcoming statements to fugitive slaves in the mid-nineteenth century.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
This resource provides nineteenth-century black narratives that address what it meant to be enslaved and how slaves' identity was formed and changed over time.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave to Free, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Interviews with and narratives from former slaves who became free and letters from former slaves reflecting on their freedom.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Entrepreneurs, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Six mid-nineteenth century accounts by free-born black entrepreneurs about their economic activities and struggles. Links to documents describing each trade are provided within this well-developed resource.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Artists, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
The artwork of four nineteenth-century free blacks expressed in portraits, landscapes, sculpture, and photography. Links to works from Joshua Johnson, Robert Scott Duncanson, Edmonia Lewis, and Augustus Washington are provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Poets, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
The writings of four African Americans poets from the late-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries that examine slavery, abolition, and emancipation. These authors include Phillis Wheatley, George Moses Horton, James Whitfield, and...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Soldiers: Making of African American Identity: 1500 1865
Photographs of and letters from black soldiers-both enslaved and free-from the late-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries that examine military experience for African Americans.