Research Guides: Black Lives Matter: Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement

Slavery and Abolitionism in the United States

Out of the House of Bondage by Thavolia Glymph
This is a story of race and gender, nation and citizenship, freedom and bondage in the nineteenth century South; a big abstract story that is composed of equally big personal stories.
Many Thousands Gone by Ira Berlin
Ttraces the evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early seventeenth century through the Revolution. In telling their story, Ira Berlin reintegrates slaves into the history of the American working class and into the tapestry of our nation.
Ebony and Ivy by Craig Steven Wilder
In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy. Many of America's revered colleges and universities-from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC-were soaked in the sweat, the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of color.
Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery by Randall M. Miller; John David Smith
Alphabetical list and signed entries, terms, concepts, associations, and people important to an understanding of African American slavery in the United States. Includes maps, tables, chronology, brief bibliographies.

Slave Voyages
Project that compiles and makes publicly accessible the archives and records on slave trading voyages. Collaboration of several universities.
North American Slave Narratives
Includes all existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920
The 1619 Project
The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.
American Memory: Born in Slavery. Slave Narratives from the Federal Writer's Project, 1936-1938

Abolitionist Movement

Colored Conventions Project
Bringing 19th-Century Black Organizing to Digital Life
From 1830 until well after the Civil War, African Americans gathered across the United States and Canada to participate in political meetings held at the state and national levels. A cornerstone of Black organizing in the nineteenth century, these “Colored Conventions” brought Black men and women together in a decades-long campaign for civil and human rights.
Black Abolitionists Archive
A collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials.
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From 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; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files.
Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Pennsylvania Abolition Society Digital Exhibit brings together a series of documents to tell a history of the PAS's work during its crucial battle against slavery in the years before the U.S. Civil War.

Harriet Tubman by Catherine Clinton
In a biography widely praised for its impeccable research and its compelling narrative, Harriet Tubman is revealed for the first time as a singular and complex character, a woman who defied simple categorization.
Women, Race and Class by Angela Y. Davis
A powerful study of the women's liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.