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Library Resources for AFRO 474/HIST 478 Black Freedom Movements, 1955-present

Contact:

Mary Stuart
History, Philosophy and Newspaper Librarian

m-stuart@uiuc.edu
244-0797

I. Primary source collections

Microfilm sets

[all located in History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library unless otherwise noted]

The Black Power Movement, Part 1: Amiri Baraka from Black Arts to Black Radicalism. 9 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 B561

The Black Power Movement, Part 2: The Papers of Robert F. Williams. 26 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 B56111

The Black Power Movement, Part 3: Papers of the Revolutionary Action Movement, 1962-1996. 17 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 B5613

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers, 1959-1972. 72 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 St94s

Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, 1941-1967. 49 reels with guide. FILM 323.406073 C81p

Congress of Racial Equality Papers Addendum, 1944-1968. 25 reels. FILM 323.406073 C81p Adden.

Black Panther Documents. 66 reels. FILM 322.420973 B561b

FBI File on the Muslim Mosque Inc. 3 reels with guide. FILM 306.69787 F299

FBI File on the Black Panther Party, North Caroline. 2 reels with guide. FILM 322.420973 F299

FBI File on Rev. Jesse Jackson. 1 reel. FILM B.J136u

FBI File on Elijah Muhammad. 3 reels with guide. FILM 297.87092 M892f

FBI File on Malcolm X. 10 reels with guide. FILM B.L7784fb

FBI File on Moorish Science Temple of America (Noble Drew Ali). 3 reels with guide. FILM 297.870973 f299

FBI File on the Organization of African-American Unity (OAAU). 1 reel with guide. FILM 305.8096073 Fb299

FBI File on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). 2 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 Un3f

FBI File on Roy Wilkins. 1 reel with guide. FILM 305.896073 W658u

FBI File, A. Philip Randolph. 1 reel with guide. FILM 323.1196073 R159u

Papers of the NAACP. Hundreds of reels with guides, mostly covering pre-1955. A few parts contain information on the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. All have same call number stem: FILM 305.896073 N21p.

The Bayard Rustin Papers. 23 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 R928b

Fannie Lou Hamer, 1917-1977: Papers, 1966-1978. 17 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 H178f

The Papers of W.E.B. Du Bois. 89 reels with guide. FILM B.D8162d2

Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1954-1970. 82 reels with guide. FILM 323.1196073 R245

II. Newspapers

The UIUC Library has an extensive collection of newspapers, both current and retrospective, in a variety of formats, including hard copy, microfilm, and digital reproductions. Not all of them are included in the online catalog, but if you are looking for a particular newspaper title, try searching it first in the online catalog.

If you want to search for newspapers by place of publication, use the Library’s separate online database of newspapers (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/nex/newsform.php). This database is searchable by keywords from the title and by country, state, or city of publication.

Newspapers on microfilm are shelved in the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library stacks. The film is arranged in Dewey Decimal order, which is geographical by country and state. We have microfilm reader-printers and view-scanners in the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library. If you need help finding a newspaper or using the equipment, the staff in HPNL will be happy to help you.

We have full-text online access (keyword searchable) to the following newspapers (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/hix/historical.html):

Atlanta Constitution (1868-1925)
Boston Globe (1872-1922)
Chicago Defender (1905-1975)
Chicago Tribune (1849-1985)
Christian Science Monitor (1908-1992)
Los Angeles Times (1881-1985)
New York Times (1851-2002)
Wall Street Journal (1889-1988)
Washington Post (1877-1989)

Issues for the last 10-20 years are available through EBSCO Host Newspaper Source (1997- ), Newsbank (1992- ), or Lexis/Nexis Academic Universe (1980- for some titles). These are available from the Library Gateway under “Online Research Resources” (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/orr). We also have access to Ethnic NewsWatch (1990- ). Later in the semester Ethnic NewsWatch will be expanded to include newspapers from 1960 to 1989.

For newspapers that have not been digitized, article-level indexing is limited, particularly before the 1970s. (However, you can use the online newspapers to identify dates of coverage of specific events, then look at the microfilm around those dates for coverage in non-indexed newspapers.) Fortunately, we have the Index to Black Newspapers that provides indexing from 1977 to the present (016.0713 In2 and 016.0713 In21 in the reference section of the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library.

There are many African American newspapers in the Library’s collections, such as Black Panther (Oakland, 1967-1974), Black Times (Albany, Calif., 1971-1976), New York Amsterdam News (1938-1962), Michigan Chronicle (Detroit, 1943- ), Afro-American (Baltimore, 1915-1988), Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1962), Los Angeles Sentinel (1946- ), Liberated Guardian (New York, 1970-1973), and others. Many African American newspapers are included in the microfilm set, Underground Press Collection. All of these newspapers are on microfilm and can be found in the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library.

The back files of the Daily Illini have not been digitized, but there is a print index of feature articles from the D.I. for the period 1961-1978, called the Daily Illini Spectrum Index. This is a rudimentary subject index and a chronological listing. There is a copy in the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library.

III. Examples of Subject Headings Used in the UIUC Online Catalog

  • Black power-United States
  • Black Panther Party
  • African Americans-Politics and government-20th century
  • African Americans-Civil rights
  • African Americans-Civil rights-History-20th century
  • African American women
  • African American women civil rights workers
  • Civil rights workers
  • Civil rights movements
  • Black nationalism
  • Nation of Islam (Chicago, Ill.)
  • Black muslims
  • Black militant organizations-United States
  • African American newspapers
  • National Negro Labor Council
  • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)
  • Congress of Racial Equality
  • African American arts
  • [Black Arts movement]
  • X, Malcolm, 1925-1965

IV. Searching for Journal Articles

To locate scholarly articles on topics in American history, use the article database America: History & Life. This database indexes and abstracts articles, book reviews, and dissertations, published since 1964, on all periods in North American history. Use the Subject Browser to select your subject term by clicking on the open book icon to the right of the search box. You can narrow your search by adding a keyword or by using more than one subject term. Your search results display as short records, which you can expand by clicking on “Expand Record” in the bottom right hand corner of the record. The full entry shows you an abstract or summary of the article. Click on the blue Discover icon to find out if the full text of the article is available online. If it is not, you will need to search the title of the journal in the UIUC online catalog to learn where the print copy of the journal is located in the Library.

V. Other Resources

Local repositories of unpublished primary source material for local history:

Student Life and Culture Archive.
1707 S. Orchard, Urbana (east of the President’s house off Florida Avenue)
Contact Ellen Swain (eswain@uiuc.edu)

University Archives.
19 Library (by the entrance to the tunnel)
Contact Chris Prom (prom@uiuc.edu)

Champaign County Archives (Urbana Free Library).
201 S. Race St., Urbana

Bibliographies:

Afro-American Nationalism: An Annotated Bibliography of Militant Separatist and Nationalist Literature. By Agustina and Charles C. Herod. (1986) 016.30589607 H423a Copies in Afro-Americana reference, main stacks

Harvard Guide to African-American History. Edited by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, et al. (2001) 973.0496073 H261 Copies in History and Philosophy Library, Afro-Americana reference, and Undergraduate Library

The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide. Edited by Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr. (2001) 973.0496073 Af8355 main stacks

© 2006 Mary Stuart