The Atlanta Daily World had the first black White House correspondent and was the first black daily in the nation in the 20th century. This historical newspaper archive includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.
Coverage: 1931-2003.
Full text of hundreds of plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.
Coverage: Mid-1800s to present
The Chicago Defender is a leading African-American newspaper, with more than two-thirds of its readership outside Chicago. The newspaper was a proponent of The Great Migration, the move of over 1.5 million African-Americans from the segregated South to the industrial North from 1915 to 1925. It reported on the Red Summer race riots of 1919, editorialized for anti-lynching legislation, integration of blacks into the U.S. military, and promoted the writing of Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate of Illinois.
Coverage: 1910-1975.
The oldest and largest black newspaper in the western United States, this newspaper has has exposed prejudice, promoted social change, and empowered the black community since 1934. It continues to cover community and world issues from the unique cultural perspective of the Los Angeles African-American community.
Coverage: 1934-2005.
A conservative voice in the African-American community, the Pittsburgh Courier challenged the misrepresentation of African-Americans in the national media and advocated social reforms to advance the cause of civil rights. Intellectuals and influential writers such as W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, and others have written columns or reported for the newspaper.
Coverage: 1911-2002.
Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to millions of 2D and 3D digital items from our collections. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s museums, research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
Coverage: Prehistoric to present