Websites - Iowa Colored Conventions Project - Guides at University of Iowa

Selected Web Resources

African-American Museum of Iowa
The Cedar Rapids museum, opened in 2003, offers exhibits on the history of African and African Americans in the United States, with emphasis on Iowa.
African-American Women: On-line Archival Collection
The content for this website derives from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, and provides access to online archival collections featuring scanned pages and texts of the writings of African-American women.
The African American Mosaic
A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History & Culture
The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
This Special Presentation of the Library of Congress exhibition, The African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, showcases the Library's incomparable African-American collections.
African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection 1818-1907
A panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost 100 years from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900.
African American Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century
A digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.
American Memory
American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning.
Amistad Research Center
An independent manuscripts library dedicated to preserving African American and ethnic history and culture.
Association of African American Museums
The Association of African American Museums (AAAM) is a non-profit membership organisation for black museums, cultural institutions and black museum professionals in America.
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The site gives membership information, a history of the Association, a database of member museums and other relevant museums, and information on the AAAM's annual conference. The site also provides a list of e-resources and websites and there is a virtual gallery.
Black Abolitionist Archive
rom the 1820s to the Civil War, African Americans assumed prominent roles in the transatlantic struggle to abolish slavery. In contrast to the popular belief that the abolitionist crusade was driven by wealthy whites, some 300 black abolitionists were regularly involved in the antislavery movement, heightening its credibility and broadening its agenda. 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.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
Contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.
Digital Library on American Slavery
The Digital Library on American Slavery is an expanding resource compiling various independent online collections focused upon race and slavery in the American South, made searchable through a single, simple interface. Although the current focus of DLAS is sources associated with North Carolina, there is considerable data contained herein relating to all 15 slave states and Washington, D.C., including detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color.
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science.
Digital Schomburg
Relying on the expertise of distinguished curators and scholars, Digital Schomburg provides access to trusted information, interpretation, and scholarship on the global black experience 24/7. Users worldwide can find, in this virtual Schomburg Center, exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora.
Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) includes sixteen thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture.
FamilySearch
Discover your family history. Explore the world's largest collection of free family trees, genealogy records and resources.

The University of Iowa does not subscribe to FamilySearch. Users are responsible for creating their own accounts.
Frederick Douglass Papers
The Frederick Douglass Papers provide full-text access to a wealth of materials relating to the life, work, and legacy of African-American slave and anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass.
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They include: personal diaries; correspondence; speeches; political pamphlets; and writings. Also accessible are documents by other contemporary abolitionists, including Henry Ward Beecher, Ida B. Wells, and Gerrit Smith. Topics covered include: the emancipation of slaves in the USA; racial prejudice; prison reform; and women's suffrage. Most materials cover the period 1841-1964 and users may search the site by keyword or browse by subject. A time-line of Douglass's life and some background information on his importance are provided. A bibliography of further readings and a finding aid to the collection is also available.
From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909
From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909 presents 396 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, published from 1822 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics. The materials range from personal accounts and public orations to organizational reports and legislative speeches.
The Genius of Freedom: Northern Black Activism and Uplift after the Civil War
In Motion: African American Migration Experience
It is an invaluable source for the study of Black American history, providing free access to over 16,000 texts, 8,000 images and 60 maps relating to Black migration movements from the 15th - 21st century.
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There is extensive coverage of the transatlantic slave trade, Haitian immigration from the 18th-20th Centuries, Afro-Caribbean immigration and migration movements to the United States and the emancipation of slaves. Online resources include: primary resource letters, diaries and texts; secondary resource material from textbooks and academic journals. Other features of the site include lesson plans for teachers, a glossary of terms, bibliographies of further readings and links to related websites.
Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits
This site provides free access to an online exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery. It comprises a collection of photographs of key figures from the African American community from the 19-20th Centuries.
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They include figures from the civil rights movement, community leaders and civil rights campaigners. Among them are Martin Luther King, Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass. Each photograph has a biographical caption summarising the key achievements of the person. Copyright information is displayed on the website.
Local History & Genealogy - Musser Public Library (Muscatine, IA)
Note: Some resources may require login/authentication via Musser Public Library patron credentials.
Race and Slavery Petitions Project
A searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color. Designed as a tool for scholars, historians, teachers, students, genealogists, and interested citizens, the site provides access to information gathered and analyzed over an eighteen-year period from petitions to southern legislatures and country courts filed between 1775 and 1867 in the fifteen slaveholding states in the United States and the District of Columbia.
TheBlackPast.org : an online reference guide to African American history
This website has been created by staff associated with the University of Washington, Seattle. It provides free access to materials relating to Black African American history from the 18th Century to the present day.
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This includes an online encyclopedia of key figures, events and concepts; the complete transcript of over 100 speeches given between 1789 and 2004; over 80 full text documents (court cases and legislation); timelines of key events and a directory of useful research resources. Topics covered include civil rights; slavery; emancipation and the history and culture of Black African Americans.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Has information on almost 35,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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It offers researchers, students and the general public a chance to rediscover the reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history.
W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research
The Du Bois Institute is the nation's oldest research center dedicated to the study of the history, culture, and social institutions of Africans and African Americans.

University Libraries

Iowa Colored Conventions Project: Websites

Selected Web Resources