Web Resources on African American Writers and Literature

African American CultureAfrican American Literary Movements African American Quilts
Digital CollectionsGeneral Biographical SourcesGeneral Literary Sites
Local HistoryPeriodicalsWomen Writers

African American Culture

African American Literary Movements and Genres

  • Black Arts Movement

    • "A comprehensive look at the people, works and organizations behind this 1960s cultural movement." Created to support an English class at the University of Michigan. Pages explain key concepts in the movement, provide the text to important documents, give biographies of significant people, identify key institutions, discuss the images and role of women, and provide a bibliography.
  • Black Theatre Resources

    • Provides brief artist profiles of Black playwrights and a directory of Black Theatre Companies.
  • The Circle Association's Harlem Renaissance Site

    • The Circle Association is a brotherhood of African American men based in Buffalo, New York who, among other activities, maintain web sites on African American themes and issues, including one for the Harlem Renaissance. The site gives a brief overview of the Harlem Renaissance and provides links to sources of information about its writers and artists.
  • Early African American Literature Teaching Resources

    • A bibliography and links to information about 18th century African American writers.
  • Harlem Renaissance: Pivotal Movement in the Development of Afro-American Culture

    • History and bibliography of the literature of the period in the form of a lesson plan.
  • Coretta Scott King Award

    • "The Coretta Scott King Award is presented annually by the Coretta Scott King Task Force of the American Library Association's Social Responsibilities Round Table. Recipients are authors and illustrators of African descent whose distinguished books promote an understanding and appreciation of the "American Dream. " The Award commemorates the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and honors his widow, Coretta Scott King, for her courage and determination in continuing the work for peace and world brotherhood." The site gives information about the winning books
  • The Internet Poetry Archive

    • Features two African American poets:  Yusef Komunyakaa and Margaret Walker. Includes real audio files of the poets reading their work and panel discussions of scholars discussion the poetry. Also provides portraits, the text of poems, biographies, and bibliographies.  Gives a fuller literary experience than any other site listed because of its audio component.
  • Black Pulp Fiction

    • Essays in Salon by editor Marc Gerald about his attempts to revive literary interest in black pulp fiction
  • Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance

    • "This Web site provides an introduction to the exhibition Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance, curated by David A. Bailey and Richard J. Powell and organized by the Hayward Gallery, London in collaboration with the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC., and the Institute of International Visual Arts. The Web site combines images and text to elaborate on some of the key themes in the exhibition: The Harlem Renaissance, Representing the New Negro, Modernism and Modernity, A Blues Aesthetic, Imagining Africa, Haiti and Images of Black Nationhood.  The Web site does not seek to be "encyclopaedic" in its scope but rather seeks to provide a brief introduction to the exhibition and its critical and curatorial framework through a small selection of images and soundbites drawn primarily from the exhibition catalogue essays."
  • Yahoo's Guide to the Harlem Renaissance

African American Quilts

  • African American Quilts and Quilters

    • Discusses the work of several notable African American quilters.
  • African American Quilts

    • An exhibit by Dr. Maude Southwell Wahlman, whose doctoral dissertation from Yale was on African American quilts. "The exhibition honors living artists and promotes an active art. African-American quilting should be recognized and celebrated now so that it can be preserved and continued in the future." Ten quilters and their quilts.
  • Links: African American Quilting

    • Links from a site called "America's Quilting History." Looks at quilts from the context of the culture that produced them. Highly recommended.
  • Rosie Lee Tompkins

    • Tompkins is an African American California woman whose art form is quilt making. Her work is frequently shown in galleries. For more information, look here
  • Southern Quilting

    • "The project includes a description of European and African quilting traditions and their contributions to Southern quilting, a look at seven individual women and their personal quilting traditions, and a selective "archive" of the American literary works which center around the role of American quilts. "

Digital Collections &Electronic Texts

  • African American History at the Maryland State Archives

    • Includes a number of visual images from their collections. Also has such resources as a list of resources on African Americans in the Archives, an alphabetical list entitled " United States Colored Troops Resident in Baltimore at the time of the 1890 Census," and an exhibit called, "The Road from Frederick to Thurgood: Black Baltimore in Transition 1870-1920."
  • African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection 1818-1907

    • This is a segment of the Library of Congress's American Memory Project, a digital collection of historical materials. There are 351 titles in the Murray Collection, including such authors as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.  Topics include sermons, annual reports, college catalogs and graduation speeches, biographies, legal documents, slave narratives, and much more. This is just one of several African American themed material in the American Memory Library.
  • African American Women: On-line Archival Collections, Special Collections Library, Duke University

    • Images of letters written by slaves that have been digitized for this exhibit. Also a memoir written by the daughter of slaves, born in 1867.
  • African American Writers: Online E-texts

    • Contains links to electronic texts by notable African American writers, as well as teacher resource guides that may include writer biographies, discussions of their works, and samples of their writing.
  • American Slave Narratives

    • "From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. These former slaves, most born in the last years of the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms. Their narratives remain a peerless resource for understanding the lives of America's four million slaves." Excerpts from the WPA narratives are available from this site.
  • Digital Schomberg African American Writers of the 19th Century: A Selection of Published Works

    • The Schomberg Library, a branch of the New York Public Library, has a longstanding record of promoting and preserving African American culture. This web site makes readily available the published works of 52 African American women of the 19th century. The collection is full text searchable. Browsing by title, author, and literary type (fiction, biography & autobiography, poetry, and essays) is also possible. Other Schomberg exhibits include "Images of African Americans from the 19th Century" and "Harlem 1900-1940: An African American Community" as links from the library's home page.
  • Documenting the American South

    • "Documenting the American South (DAS) is a collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20thcentury. As of November 1, 1999, DAS includes 380 books and manuscripts. "The collections of electronic texts are organized into ten categories, including:  First-Person Narratives of the American South, Library of Southern Literature, North American Slave Narratives, The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865, The Church in the Southern Black Community.
  • North by South: The African American Great Migration

    • "The North by South webpage explores multiple dimensions of the Great Migration of African-Americans from the rural South to Northern cities. Epic in scale, monumental in its long-term social and cultural impact, the Great Migration stands as the largest internal movement of people in the history of the United States."
  • The University of Virginia Libraries Electronic Text Center

    • An index and links to African American authors whose works have been digitized and made available through the Electronic Text Center. Includes works by Frederick Douglass, Rita Dove, and W.E.B. DuBois.

General Biographical Sources

  • African American Warriors

    • Focuses on biographies of black soldiers from the American Revolution to the Korean War.
  • Artnoir Showcase Afro-Art History 101

    • Biographies and images of artworks for 29 African American artists, some of whom, like Faith Ringold and Jacob Lawrence, use art to tell stories of the lives of African Americans.
  • Biography.com

    • Searchable index to over 20,000 biographies, including many African Americans. The site is maintained by the A&E Television Networks. Focus is on both history and popular culture, with a wide variety of careers represented, including boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, blues singer Hudie Ledbetter, and politician Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Racial identity is not mentioned unless the subject's race is key to his other achievements (e.g., such  that Bill Cosby was the first African American to star in a network television program, or that Toni Morrison's work draws from and celebrates African Americans in history).
  • Speak Out

    • "Speak Out, a project of the Institute for Democratic Education and Culture, is the country's only national not-for-profit speakers and artists agency." The Speak Out site provides brief biographical information about their speakers, who come from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds but share a commitment to social change.

General Literary Sites

  • Academy of American Poets

    • Provides high quality pages for eminent American poets, including Richard Hayden, Lucille Clifton, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Includes biographies, bibliographies, the texts of poems, critical discussion, portraits, and links to other sites.
  • African American Literature Book Club

    • A satisfying site for aficionados of African American literature. Especially valuable for its promotion of first novelists and contemporary writers. Contains in-depth information about authors in helpful categories: female, male, new, cartoonists, gay and lesbian, Harlem Renaissance, religious-spiritual, romance, and children's book writers. Author pages often include links to other sites, interviews, reader reviews, ordering information, and images of their books. This site also offers an African American Literary and On-line Reading Group Discussion Board, a writer's resource page, and a "fun stuff" page that includes games and crosswords.
  • African American Literature Handout

    • Provides a timeline of the African presence in the English Colonies and the United States, with special attention given to the state of South Carolina. Gives a timeline for African American literature. Used as a handout for a literature course taught at William Patterson University in New Jersey.
  • African American Writers: A Celebration

    • Extensive list of web sources on African American literature, a selected bibliography of materials available in the Middle Tennessee State University library, with links to author information on the internet, and more. Attractive site graced by portraits of famous writers: Walker, Hurston, Baldwin, and others.
  • A Black Cultural Studies Web Site

    • Links that present "bibliographical information on cultural workers working in such areas as Black literary criticism, Black popular culture, critical race theory and film theory."  Valuable because it introduces writers in the nonfiction realm, who are of lesser celebrity than the novelists and poets of other literary sites.
  • The Fat African American Library

    • Glo Aniebo-Williams and Scott Williams have created a labor of love with this web site, which includes a partial list of the more than 6000 books in their home library and links to authors' home pages.
  • Furious Flower: African American Poetry 1960-1995

    • Subtitled: A Study Guide to the Video Series. Divides poets into these categories: Elders, Warriors, Seers, and Initiates. Provides a selected bibliography, discussion questions, and a biography for many of the poets featured. This site's strength is the biographical information it provides for poets who are not widely known.
  • San Antonio College Litweb. A Brief Chronology of African American Literature.

    • Begins in 1746, with Lucy Terry's "Bars Fight." Gives a timeline of African American achievements in literature, with links to more in depth author pages.

Local History

  • 54th.Mass. Volunteer Infantry, Co. I

    • Explores the experience of the African American soldier in the American Civil War in South Carolina.
  • African American Community (North Carolina)

    • Photographs from before 1950 are in the "African American Album: The Black Experience in Charlotte and Mecklenburg Counties."
  • African-Americans in South Carolina History

    • Provides links to sites about the Gullah heritage, slavery in South Carolina, and state research centers and libraries.
  • African Americans in Southeastern Ohio

    • An impressive set of links to information about Blacks in Ohio, with an emphasis on historic sites.
  • Black Populism in the New South

    • Contains chronologies on the topic in three periods that range from 1517-1900 and links to essays, bibliographies, and lecture notes.
  • History of African Americans in West Virginia

    • Includes "A Brief history of African Americans in West Virginia," "A Timeline of West Virginia African American History," "African Americans in the Counties of Present Day West Virginia in 1860," "Biographies of Prominent African Americans in West Virginia," and "History of the American Negro: Vol. VII, West Virginia." The last item listed includes biographical information about some of the early presidents, teachers, and alumni of Bluefield Colored Institute (now Bluefield State  College).
  • Kentucky History: Blacks/African Americans

    • Provides information about African Americans in the Kentucky Derby, politicians, librarians, U.S. Colored Troops, and more.
  • Maryland's African American Heritage

    • Focuses on the African-American experience in Maryland. Includes biographies of famous Marylanders and provides some of their quotations, offers time lines, and links to important historical sites.
  • Our Shared History: Celebrating African American History and Culture

    • Produced by the National Park Service and devoted to providing internet access to the many parks, places, monuments, memorials, sites, and battlefields that are notable in African American culture and history. Offers travel itineraries for significant places in the underground railroad, the civil rights movement, and in the cities of Detroit and Chicago. Provides lesson plans and visual images for teaching history using historical places. Has an exhibit on Frederick Douglass.  Very interesting for its emphasis on geography and place in African American  history.
  • Philadelphia's African American History

    • Notable historical and cultural sites in the Philadelphia area pertaining to black history.
  • Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee

    • Gives a history of African Americans in Tennessee with links to eminent individuals and important organizations.
  • Selected Achievements of African-American Authors of West Virginia

    • A list of eminent West Virginia writers, including birth place, date of literary achievement, and brief description.

Periodicals

  • Black Issues Book Review

    • A book review journal started in January1999 devoted to the review and discussion of African American literature.  Website includes the text of selected articles from three issues, though that may change when it establishes the subscription base for its print version.
  • Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

    • "The Nation's only news magazine dedicated exclusively to minority issues in higher education." Founded in 1984.
  • Cultural Resources Management & CRM Online

    • Published by the National Parks Service,CRM is a journal devoted to cultural resources management and preservation.  Issues relating to African American history and culture and frequently covered, including the following themed issues: Diversity and Cultural Resources, Slavery and Resistance, African American History and Culture, and Connections: African American History and CRM. Web archives go back to 1978.
  • Ishmael Reed's Konch Magazine

    • "Established in 1991. Online since 1998." A free online journal published and edited by Ishmael Reed. The website provides access to the content of the current issue. The November 1999 issue included photographs of such literary figures as Don DeLillo, Reed, and Wole Soyinka; poetry by Reed, Cecil Brown, and others less well known; short stories, and articles on literature and culture, not necessarily limited to African or African American subjects, but viewed from that perspective.  A sample of article include these titles: "Alice Walker's Colonial Mind," "Racism in Outer Space?" "Kerouac in Black and White," and "Motherism:  The Afrocentric Alternative."
  • Mosaic Literary Magazine

    • Mosaic Literary Magazine, created December 1997, is a quarterly publication dedicated to covering all aspects of African American and Hispanic literature. A few articles from the many available in a recent issue can be accessed free over the internet. Be sure to explore the links from this site to Mosaic books, an online book club with African American interests.
  • Quarterly Black Review

    • Reviews and feature articles about African American literature. Includes access to past issues. A source of valuable information about books and authors, however, it is not updated often enough.
  • Womanist Theory and Research: A Newsletter for Afrocentric Feminist Researchers

    • An online journal that is devoted to studying African American issues from a feminist perspective.   Provides free online access to a few articles in the most recently published issue, as well as fuller access to their pioneer issue.

Women Writers

  • A Celebration of Women Writers

    • Contains links to biographical and bibiographical information about women writers and to some of their published texts. An exhaustive list of writers from many centuries and countries, although the focus is on English writers. Includes well-known African American writers such as Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, but also includes more specialized or obscure writers, such as Octavia Victoria Rogers Albert and Augusta Baker. Many names are not yet linked and some links contain minimal information about the writers.
  • Scribbling Women

    • "Scribbling Women, a project of The Public Media Foundation, dramatizes stories by American women writers for national radio broadcast. This site provides classroom resources for teaching and learning the rich tradition of American literature by women." Includes biographies of writers, play synopses, historical and literary contexts, references to further reading, and lesson plans built around individual plays. African American writers include Harriet Jacobs, Marita Bonner, and Ann Petry.
  • Voices from the Gaps

    • "Voices From the Gaps focuses on the lives and works of women writers of color in North America. The Voices project is made possible through an ongoing collaborative effort between faculty and students in the Department of English and the Program in American Studies at the University of Minnesota. Each author page presents biographical, critical and bibliographical information about the writer as well as images and quotes pertinent to her life and works. Each page includes, in addition, links to other resources on the World Wide Web which contain significant information about that writer. Author pages are organized along a set off our indices: by name, place of birth, significant dates, and ethnic/racial identity." Professionally done. Highly recommended.
  • Women of Color, Women of Words--African American Female Playwrights

    • An in-depth look at the world of African American theatre. Includes biographies, portraits and lists of publications for 18 female writers. Also gives details about representative plays, references to dissertations about the writers' works, a list of libraries and research centers with significant collections relating to African American theatre, links to internet resources, a bibliography of reference sources, and more.  Highly recommended.

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Last updated October 16, 2007 by Peggy Turnbull