Professional Resources

Included here are links to some of the major university programs, libraries and research centers in African American/African Diaspora Studies. There are also links to teaching resources such as course syllabi.
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Universities, Libraries, and Research Centers

The following are among the leading (predominantly U.S., but some non-U.S.) African American/African Diaspora programs, libraries, and research centers. The libraries and research centers contain large repositories of primary and secondary source material, some of which are available in digital form.

• Africa Centre (London)
• Brown University
  • Department of Africana Studies
• California State University at Haywood
  • Department of Ethnic Studies
• Catholic University of America
  • Oliveira Lima Library
• Chicago Public Library
• Columbia University
  • Center for Contemporary Black History
  • Institute for Research in African-American Studies
  • Institute of African Studies
• Cornell University
  • Africana Studies & Research Center
  • John Henrik Clarke Africana Library
• Duke University
  • Department of African & African American Studies
  • John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies
• Emory University
  • Department of African American Studies
• Harvard University
  • Department of African & African American Studies
  • W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research
• Howard University
  • Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
• Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
  • Black European Studies Program (BEST)
• Johns Hopkins University
  • Center for Africana Studies
• New York Public Library
  • Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Northwestern University
  • Center for African American History
  • Department of African American History
  • Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies
  • Program of African Studies
• Ohio State University
  • Department of African American and African Studies
• Princeton Univeristy
  • Center for African American Studies
• Shaw Univeristy
• Southern Illinois University
  • Black American Studies Program
• Temple University
  • Department of African American Studies
• University of California, Berkeley
  • Department of African American Studies
• University of California, Los Angeles
  • UCLA African Studies Center
  • UCLA Interdepartmental Program in Afro-American Studies
• University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Department of Black Studies
• University of Cambridge
  • Centre of African Studies
• University of Central Missouri
  • Africana Studies Center
• University of Chicago
  • Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture
  • Committee on African and African-American Studies
• University of London
  • School of Oriental and African Studies
  • School of Oriental and African Studies Library
  • Centre of African Studies
  • Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne
  • Department of African American Studies
  • Center for African Studies
  • Africana Library
  • The African Diaspora Archaelogy Network
• University of Maryland
  • African American Studies Department
  • David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora
  • Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
• University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • W.E.B. Dubois Library
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Department of African and Afro-American Studies
  • Institute of African American Research
• University of Notre Dame
  • Department of Africana Studies
• University of Paris IV-Sorbonne
• University of Southern California
  • Department of American Studies and Ethnicity
• University of Texas at Austin
  • Center for African & African American Studies
• University of Toledo
  • Africana Studies Program
• University of the West Indies
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Department of Afro-American Studies
• University of Warwick
  • Center for Caribbean Studies
• University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
• Williams College
  • Africana Studies Department
• Yale Univeristy
  • African American Studies
• York University
  • Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora

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Professional Associations and Organizations

• African Diaspora Archaeology Network
• African Studies Association
• Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)
• Association of African American Museums
• Association of Black Women Historians
• Association of Dance of the African Diaspora (ADAD)
• Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD)
• Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA)
• Caribbean Studies Association
• eBlack Studies
• H-Afro-Am (H-Net discussion network)
• Latin American Studies Association (LASA)
• National Association for African American Studies
• National Council for Black Studies (NCBS)
• Society for Caribbean Studies (UK)
• Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS)
• TransAfrica Forum

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Teaching Resources

• Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Teaching and learning resources produced by the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

• Slavery
• The Tumultuous 1960s
• National Endowment for the Humanities: Edsitement

  Lesson plans presented by the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the National Trust for the Humanities, and the Verizon Foundation. The numbers in italics refer to the appropriate grade levels.

  • African-American Communities in the North Before the Civil War 6-8
  • African-American Soldiers After World War I: Had Race Relations Changed? 9-12
  • African-American Soldiers in World War I: The 92nd and 93rd Divisions 9-12
  • After the American Revolution: Free African Americans in the North 6-8
  • The Emancipation Proclamation: Freedom's First Steps 9-12
  • Before Brother Fought Brother: Life in the North and South 1847-1861 6-8
  • Critical Ways of Seeing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Context 9-12
  • Dr. King's Dream K-2
  • The Emancipation Proclamation: Freedom's First Steps 9-12
  • Families in Bondage 9-12
  • Folklore in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God 9-12
  • A House Dividing: The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America 9-12
  • Jazz and World War II: A Rally to Resistance, A Catalyst for Victory 9-12
  • Learning the Blues 9-12
  • Let Freedom Ring: The Life & Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. 3-5
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Power of Nonviolence 6-8
  • Perspective on the Slave Narrative 9-12
  • The Poet's Voice: Langston Hughes and You 6-8
  • Profiles in Courage: To Kill A Mockingbird and the Scottsboro Boys Trial 9-12
  • Profiles in Courage: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird 9-12
  • Quest for the American Dream in A Raisin in the Sun 9-12
  • Slave Narratives: Constructing U.S. History Through Analyzing Primary Sources 3-5
  • Spirituals 9-12
  • Who Was Cinque? 9-12
• National Archives and Records Administration: Digital Classroom

  The following are lesson plans that contain reproducible copies of primary documents from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States

  • Teaching With Documents: An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks
  • Teaching With Documents: The Amistad Case
  • Teaching With Documents: Beyond the Playing Field - Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate
  • Teaching With Documents: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
  • Teaching With Documents: Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers
  • Teaching With Documents: Documents Related to Brown v Board of Education
  • Teaching With Documents: The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
• National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places: Teaching with Historic Places

  The following are K-!2 lesson plans presented by the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places. These lessons use historic sites to explore American history.

  • An American Success Story: The Pope House of Raleigh, NC
  • Brown v. Board: Five Communities that Changed America
  • Chicago's Black Metropolis: Understanding History through a Historic Place
  • From Canterbury to Little Rock: The Struggle for Educational Equality for African Americans
  • Glen Echo Park: Center for Education and Recreation
  • Iron Hill School: An African-American One Room School
  • The Liberty Bell: From Obscurity to Icon
  • The Mary McLeod Bethune Council House: African American Women Unite for Change
  • Memories of Montpelier: Home of James and Dolley Madison
  • New Kent School and the George W. Watkins School: From Freedom of Choice to Integration
  • New Philadelphia: A Multiracial Town on the Illinois Frontier
  • The Old Courthouse in St. Louis: Yesterday and Today
  • The Siege of Port Hudson: "Forty Days and Nights in the Wilderness of Death"
  • Two American Entrepreneurs: Madam C.J. Walker and J.C. Penney
  • The Vieux Carré: A Creole Neighborhood in New Orleans
  • When Rice Was King
• PBS Teachers

  A collection of K-12 educational resources, including lesson plans and teaching activities, covering a wide range of subjects. Below is a small sample of topics covered.

  • The Black Press
  • Blues as African American History
  • Lena Horne: Race And The American Artist
  • Ralph Ellison
  • Religion and the Civil Rights Movement
  • Slavery and the Making of America

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