Research Guides: AST 201: Introduction to Africana Studies since the 1880s: Home

Michael Schwartz Library

Welcome!

Welcome to your AST 201 Library Research Guide!

This guide contains links to useful resources to help you complete the Primary Document Analysis Paper assignment in this course.

Please contact me if you have any questions or if you need research assistance.

You can make an appointment with me using Ask Your Personal Librarian (from the library's homepage). Or, use the Schedule Appointment button to the left. We can meet in person in my office (RT 110C) at the Michael Schwartz Library or virtually over Zoom.

Good Luck!

Diane Kolosionek

Google Searches for Primary Sources

Should you search on Google for primary sources? ABSOLUTELY!

You can uncover great primary sources through Google searches. Try searching on different keywords and combinations of terms to find information. For example:

African Americans history primary documents
Black Panther Party primary sources
Civil Rights Movement speeches
Freedom Riders primary sources
Haitian Revolution primary sources
Harlem Renaissance images

You can also search on the name of an individual, organization, event, or time period. You can also search on the title of a specific primary document, original work, law, or court case. For example:

The Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program
Brown v. Board of Education
Malcolm X primary documents
Strange Fruit Billie Holiday
Voting Rights Act of 1965

The possibilities are endless! The challenge will be navigating through all of the results you retrieve from Google searches.

Local History Sources

Special Collections at CSU's Michael Schwartz Library focuses on the history of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. Primary sources like news clippings and photographs from The Cleveland Press newspaper are housed in the Special Collections Department on the Library's 3rd floor. Some of the primary sources have been digitized and are available ONLINE - through Cleveland Memory and The Cleveland Press Archives on Newspapers.com.

Black Trailblazers, Leaders, Activists, and Intellectuals in Cleveland: A Pathfinder to Black Local History
Cleveland Memory
The Cleveland Press Archive
Available on-campus only (for now)

Library Databases

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
History and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers world history from 1450 to present (excluding U.S. and Canada), including extensive content in over 40 languages.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in various disciplines of the humanities and social sciences.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents centered on the study of slavery, the African American experience and world history spanning from 1490 to 2007. Includes original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps, and images.
America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
American newspapers from the 1700s through the early 1900s.

Primary Sources (Digital Collections)

Here are just a handful of digital collections to explore for primary sources!

The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
The exhibition, The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, showcases the incomparable African American collections of the Library of Congress. Displaying more than 240 items, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings, this is the largest Black history exhibit ever held at the Library, and the first exhibition of any kind to feature presentations in all three of the Library's buildings.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States
This curated selection of primary sources by ProQuest is designed for teaching and learning about the struggles and triumphs of Black Americans. Developed with input from Black history scholars and advisors, its easily discoverable materials are ideal for assignments and special projects focused on U.S. Black history.
Black Women’s Suffrage Portal
The Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection is a collaborative project to provide digital access to materials documenting the roles and experiences of Black Women in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and, more broadly, women’s rights, voting rights, and civic activism between the 1850s and 1960.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute
Building upon the achievements of Stanford University's Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project, the King Institute supports a broad range of educational activities illuminating Dr. King's life and the movements he inspired. The King Institute provides access to thousands of documents, photographs, and publications about the modern African American Freedom Struggle.
Tuskegee Syphilis Study (National Library of Medicine)
Documents on the origin and development of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, including copies of articles, reports and correspondence compiled for the 1972-1973 ad hoc advisory panel commissioned to investigate the United States Public Health Service Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male at Tuskegee and Macon County, Alabama.

Cite Your Sources

Make sure to cite your sources properly according to a specific citation style!

A few common citation styles are APA (American Psychological Association), Chicago Manual of Style, and MLA (Modern Language Association).

See the Purdue OWL for examples of citing sources properly:

Michael Schwartz Library

AST 201: Introduction to Africana Studies since the 1880s

Head, Research & Liaison Services