Skip to Main Content
Databases (Open Access)
Black Abolitionist Archive
The Black Abolitionist Digital Archive is a collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period. These important documents provide a portrait of black involvement in the anti-slavery movement; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files.
Library of Congress
The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship is a curated collection of 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.
National Museum of African American History & Culture
The NMAAHC has a collection of primary sources such as photographs, letters, newspapers, and maps detailing the lives of enslaved Americans during the 17th, 18th and 19th Century.
New York Historical Society
The New York Historical Society features 14 collections consist of diaries, account books, letter books, ship logs, indentures, bills of sale, personal papers, and records of institutions. Some prominent parts of the collections include the records of the New York Manumission Society and the African Free School, the diaries and correspondence of English abolitionists Granville Sharp and John Clarkson, the papers of the Boston anti-slavery activist Lysander Spooner, the records of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the draft of Charles Sumner�s famous speech The Anti-Slavery Enterprise, and an account book kept by the slave trading firm Bolton, Dickens & Co.
New York Times: Insurance on Slave Policy
This in-depth article uses ledgers and accounts from the Insurance Company New York Life to tell the story of how Northern Companies profited from the slave trade.
Supreme Court Historical Society Annual Lecture Justice Stephen Breyer
United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer gives a lecture on the court case Dred Scott v. Sanford. Breyers points to the mistakes made during the decisions and lessons that can be learned through the mistake.
