Resources

This innovative and comprehensive database includes over 900,000 records related to the lives of individuals who were enslaved or enslavers

An interactive database compiling thousands of stories of resistance, using runaway ads to tell the story of fugitives from North American slavery

Explore over 700,000 digital images of ecclesiastical and secular documents related to African and African-descended people in slave societies, including details of other societal members

Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships

Preserves and tells the stories of the Creole community and Oakland and Magnolia Plantations in Louisiana, two of the most intact Creole cotton plantations in the United States

Repository for the historic Old Slave Mart red flag, this museum educates visitors on the natural and cultural landscape of the South Carolina Lowcountry

A collection of 11 national museums in Cape Town featuring natural and social history and art collections, and repository of the São José slave ship artifacts

An important site to learn about early colonial North American history and the African American experience, particularly seeing up close the landscape built by enslaved Black people

A photograph reveals a story of kinship bonds that survived bondage

Learn about the Germantown Protests before Emancipation Proclamation.

Explore the history of African American political meetings from the 1830s through Reconstruction, a foundational model for African American campaigns for civil and human rights

Historical resource on the Black African presence in the first colonial society of the Americas, named La Española (today’s Dominican Republic) by Spanish colonizers

Lectures and workshops from a 2021 scholarly forum on the history of Black entrepreneurship and innovation

Trade association of the more than 200 African American-owned community newspapers from around the U.S. and producer of the BlackPressUSA Network

Explore more about the Rosenwald Schools and other building, landscape, and community preservation projects

Oral history interviews with unsung activists of the 1950s and 1960s, produced by NMAAHC and the Library of Congress

Established in 1991 at the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, this museum’s mission is to share the culture and lessons from the American Civil Rights Movement and explore how this significant era continues to shape equality and freedom globally

Explore the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia, a nationally important center of African American cultural and economic activity during the early 20th century

Browse this online collection dedicated to preserving images from Historically Black Colleges and Universities

This illustrated companion book to NMAAHC’s Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures exhibition explores the power of Afrofuturism to reclaim the past and reimagine Black futures.

The Claiming Space Symposium examines Afrofuturist thought across oceans, into land reclamations, up to the stars, through cyberspace, and inward as Black visionaries look to the infinite space within.

Access millions of records documenting the names and lives of African Americans during Reconstruction.

The Equal Justice Initiative’s report on Reconstruction documents the discrimination and violence against African Americans after the end of slavery.

Explore the newspaper ads formerly enslaved African Americans placed hoping to reunite with loved ones after slavery.

Explore the proceedings of Colored Conventions from 1830 to 1899 and learn more about Black political organizing in the 19th century.

“Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience. ” a collection of essays inspired by the exhibition, explores the powerful ways in which visual art has long provided its own rich outlet for protest, commentary, escape and perspective for African Americans.

A guide for caregivers and educators to facilitate conversations and connections to art in the Reckoning exhibit with children.

A guided tour of the exhibition featuring the museum Director Kevin Young and Curators Tuliza Fleming and Aaron Bryant.

A multidisciplinary platform developed by the Smithsonian Institution to explore how race has informed each of our lives, regardless of our individual racial or ethnic identity.