NPR: National Public Radio
Npr: Jews & African Americans Built Tradition
Read about the history of the Freedom Seder, a Jewish and African-American tradition. Includes an audio version of the story and a video.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Public Image
The resources examines images that illustrate and challenge black stereotypes of the late-nineteenth century, primarily focusing on W. E. B. Du Bois' African American photographs assembled for the 1900 Paris Exposition.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community as Place, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Articles examining the notion of community as place. An essay by James Weldon Johnson and R. Edgar Iles provides different definitions of community by illustrating regional culture.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Popular Culture, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
A sculpture, poster, poem, and a painting that challenge black stereotypes in the early-twentieth century. Links to these precursors to the Harlem Renaissance are provided at the top of the page.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Volume Iii: 1917 1968: Overcome?
Primary resource material explores the outcome of civil rights protests and the Civil Rights Movement and examines what remains yet to overcome. Links to supplemental materials, discussions questions and notes.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
This resource provides nineteenth-century black narratives that address what it meant to be enslaved and how slaves' identity was formed and changed over time.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Africa, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
Photographs and an address that illustrate the role Africa played in black identity in the late-nineteenth century. This article compares Rev. Henry McNeal Turner's "back to Africa" campaign with the Exoduster migration to Kansas led by...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community and the Folk, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
A story that examines African American community in a rural setting. Zora Neale Hurston's (1891-1960) brief tale "Spunk" is provided within this resources and documents the expressions of southern black "folk."
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Bight of Biafra, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
An audio clip of a Yoruba drum and two accounts by slaves or their descendants that offer African perspectives on life and culture in the Niger River Delta.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: The Black Press
Selections from a black newspaper, "The Colored American, "from 1837-1838 that detail the numerous issues and agendas confronting enslaved and free blacks.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Senegambia, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Drawings of West Africans and two accounts of Africans before enslavement, one by an African of Gambia, one by a French traveler to Senegal. They examine how Africans lived in freedom before enslavement.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Gold Coast, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Two documents, separated by 200 years, depicting the lives of enslaved Gold Coast Africans in 1450 and 1657, and three original accounts by Europeans of the cultural practices of Gold Coast Africans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Sierra Leone, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
An eighteenth-century map, several illustrations by Europeans of Africans from Sierra Leone, and two eighteenth-century narratives depicting Sierra Leone natives through the eyes of two British physicians who describe the peoples they...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: New Art, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Artistic expressions of the new black self image inspired by migration to the urban North. This focus of this site is "Song of the Towers", a series of four murals sponsored by the federal Works Projects Administration, outlining black...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Capture, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Several narratives of the capture of West Africans, including the famous autobiography of Venture Smith, from the eighteenth century, two accounts of conditions on slave ships, and an audio recording of the memories of the descendants of...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Forward: Protest
An article that describes an NAACP meeting with Woodrow Wilson and excerpts from the film "Birth of a Nation." The text examines the gains and setbacks that mark the period of 1907 to 1917 for black Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Artists, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
The artwork of four nineteenth-century free blacks expressed in portraits, landscapes, sculpture, and photography. Links to works from Joshua Johnson, Robert Scott Duncanson, Edmonia Lewis, and Augustus Washington are provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Entrepreneurs, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Six mid-nineteenth century accounts by free-born black entrepreneurs about their economic activities and struggles. Links to documents describing each trade are provided within this well-developed resource.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave to Free, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Interviews with and narratives from former slaves who became free and letters from former slaves reflecting on their freedom.
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The History of African American Social Dance
Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom. They remain an affirmation of identity and independence. In this electric...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Racial Politics, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
Chapter from a novel and images that illustrate black political action in late-nineteenth-century America. Frances Harper's 1892 novel Iola Leroy, is examined, covering topics of white supremacy and racial justice.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Action, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
An address, a declaration of principle, and the Black National Anthem illustrating differing approaches to political action. The texts examine how Washington and Du Bois turned their political objectives into action organizations in the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Migrations: Negro Migration During War
An analysis of the reasons why blacks moved north around the time of World War I. An article by Emmett J. Scott (1873-1957), who for a time served as Booker T. Washington's personal secretary, is linked to this resource.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Mutual Benefit, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Four documents establishing black mutual assistance and self-help organizations from the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. A link to each document is provided.