Washington and Lee University Law Library
Databases Supporting Black Studies
The following databases are only available to current W&L community members:
- Black Studies Center This link opens in a new windowBlack Studies Center is a fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies including scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books, and much more.
The following are included in BSC: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP), The Chicago Defender, Black Literature Index, ProQuest Dissertations for Black Studies, ProQuest Black Newspapers, & Black Abolitionist Papers.
*HistoryMaker oral content will be made available to W&L community members via BSC late Fall 2020. - HistoryMakers Digital Archive
The HistoryMakers Oral History Digital Archives provides access to interviews, biographies, videos, archival photography, and more for over 3,300 African Americans known and unknown.
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowContains over 7,500 articles from Oxford University Press publications, some of which are not yet available in printed form, as well as primary source materials, maps, images, and more. In some cases, the entire contents of a publication might be included, such as the brand-new Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619 to 1895 and the forthcoming African American National Biography and Encyclopedia of African American Art and Architecture.
The following database is open access, available to all.
- Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: A Selection of Primary Sources (ProQuest)This open-access website from ProQuest provides a selection of primary source documents useful for a wide range of students, teachers, and independent scholars. It contains approximately 1,600 documents focused on six different phases of Black Freedom:
1. Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
2. The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
3. Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
4. The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
5. The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
6. The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)
The documents represent a selection of primary sources available in ProQuest databases, including American Periodicals, Black Abolitionist Papers, ProQuest History Vault, ProQuest Congressional, Supreme Court Insight and Alexander Street’s Black Thought and Culture.