Digital Resources for Explore Black Culture and Heritage (The Blarchives)
Historical Primary Source Databases
This is a collection of various primary source databases with historical information connected to various aspects of Black history. Peruse the site descriptions below to learn more!
SlaveVoyages is a research database about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, with voyage records, tables, maps, timelines, and estimates based on historical evidence. It helps you study patterns across places and time while remembering that every number represents human lives. For a project on changes in the slave trade, you could compare voyages in two time periods, create a simple chart or map from the data,and explain what the pattern shows - and what the surviving records cannot fully tell us.
The Library of Congress African American Newspapers Guide helps you locate historic Black newspapers by state and find out where issues may be available online. Newspapers show what communities considered urgent at the time, from local events and advertisements to editorials and national politics. For a project on the Great Migration or a civil rights protest, you could compare how a Black newspaper and a mainstream newspaper covered the same event, then analyze differences in language, audience, and priorities.
Digital Exhibits | African American Music and Culture Digital Exhibits
The Archives of African American Music and Culture Digital Exhibits feature curated collections on Black musical traditions, radio history, and cultural activism. It offers primary materials like photographs, audio files, and historical commentary highlighting how Black radio stations served as community platforms and political outlets. For an AP African American Studies assignment or research paper on media and civil rights, you could analyze a radio exhibit to evaluate its target audience, historical context, and influence on social movements.
People's of the Historical Slave Trade: Stories
People's of the Historical Slave Trade presents biographies connected to records about enslavement and freedom across Africa and the African diaspora. Instead of seeing a name in only one document, you can follow links among people, places, events, and sources to understand a life in context. You could choose one person's story for a microhistory project, trace the evidence used to reconstruct that life, and explain both what historians can learn from the records and where important gaps still remain.
