Primary Sources for African American History
A selection of primary source collections available in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, in Baltimore, or on the Web.

American Civil Liberties Union Archives, 1912-1950.  (Microfilm 293 reels)
To view a PDF copy of the guide, please visit the Scholarly Resources Online Guides web site.

American Civil Liberties Union Archives, 1950-1990.  Series II - IV.  (Microfilm, 1018 reels)
To view PDF copies of the guides, please visit the Scholarly Resources Online Guides web site.

American Memory.  Library of Congress.
Provides open access to selected materials from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions that chronicle the history of the United States.

The Birney Anti-Slavery Collection of Johns Hopkins University.  Milton S. Eisenhower Library. Special Collections Division.
A collection of over 1,000 books and pamphlets, most of which were collected by abolitionist writer and publisher James G. Birney (1792-1857).  Online Guide.

The Black Abolitionist Papers.  5 vols. Ed. by C. Peter Ripley.  Chapel Hill:  University of north Carolina Press, 1985-1992.
Eisenhower Stacks E449 .B6241 1985
A selection of primary sources from a larger collection available on microfilm (see below).  Contents:  v. 1.  The British Isles, 1830-1865 -- v. 2. Canada, 1830-1865 -- v. 3. The United States, 1830-1846 -- v. 4.  The United States, 1847-1858 -- v. 5 The United States, 1859-1865.

The Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830-1865.  (Microfilm.  17 reels.)
A brief description of this collection is available on the Proquest web site.  A guide to the papers in this collection is available in the Audio-visual Center on A-Level, Film No. 3318 Guide. 

The Black Power Movement.  Part 1, Amiri Baraka, from Black Arts to Black Radicalism.  (Microfilm, 9 reels)
A brief description and PDF version of the guide to this collection are available on the LexisNexis web site.  A printed guide to the papers in this collection is available in the Audio-visual Center on A-Level, Film No. 3751. 

The Frederick Douglass Papers.  Library of Congress.

From Slavery to Freedom:  The African American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909.  Library of Congress.

Guide to African American Sources.  Maryland Historical Society.
Highlights sources in the H. Furlong Baldwin Library at the Maryland Historical Society of the Maryland Historical Society.

Papers of the American Slave Trade.  Series A-D. 
To view a description of this collection along with links to PDF copies of available guides, please visit the LexisNexis web site.
Series A: 53 reels, printed guide available in AV Center, Film No. E 856  
Series B: 67 reels, printed guide available in AV Center, Film No. 3544
Series C: 12 reels, printed guide available in AV Center Film No. E 1398
Series D: 20 reels, printed guide available in AV Center Film No. 3725

Papers of the NAACP.  Parts 1 - 26.  (Some gaps in holdings in Parts 23-26.  MSEL does not own Parts 27-30)
To view a description of this collection, please visit the LexisNexis web site.  Online versions of the guides to this collection are available in the LexisNexis Primary Sources in U.S. History Database. 
Library Services Center Film No. E 5 (printed guides available in the AV Center, Film No. E 5)

Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks:  Petitions to Southern Legislatures, 1777-1867.  Series 1 - 2.
To view a description of this collection please visit the LexisNexis web site.
Series I:  23 reels, printed guide available in the AV Center, Film No. E 3361
Series II:  66 reels, printed guide available in the AV Center, Film No. E 3613

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. 

Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection.  Cornell University.
An extensive collection of slavery and abolitionist materials gathered by Reverend Samuel Joseph May.  The collection includes over 10,000 pamphlets and leaflets documenting the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels, as well as sermons, position papers, offprints, alocal Anti-Slavery Society newsletters, poetry anthologies, freedman's testimonies, broadsides, and Anti-Slavery Fair keepsakes.  The pamphlets are searchable online.

Say It Plain:  A Century of Great African American Speeches.  American RadioWorks.

Special Resources.  African American Department.  Enoch Pratt Free Library.