Frederick Douglass' Papers at the Library of Congress
The papers of nineteenth-century African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who escaped from slavery and then risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher, consist of approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), most of which were digitized from 34 reels of previously produced microfilm. The collection spans the years 1841-1964, with the bulk of the material dating from 1862 to 1895. Many of Douglass’s earlier writings were destroyed when his house in Rochester, New York, burned in 1872.
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, second edition
This book – one of the first in Europe by a Black African writer – was an enormous success, selling out immediately. This, the second edition, was published the same year. Equiano travelled widely to promote the book, and became wealthy from its royalties. Alongside his book, Equiano was involved in other anti-slavery campaigns. He was a founding member of the Sons of Africa, an abolitionist group formed by Africans in Britain.
Kai Wright
Editor of the African-American Experience - black history and culture through speeches, letters, editorials, poems, song, and stories
Now, Olaudah's story is unique because he offers a first-person account of being captured on the coast of Africa and hopping onto a slave ship for the infamous middle passage. That's something that we don't have a lot of first-person accounts from.
Mary Prince
Mary Prince, an enslaved Bermudian—and, thus, a British subject—is the first known Black woman to relate a slave narrative. She was the storyteller of an abolitionist collaborative writing team that brought her story to print. Susanna Strickland was the compiler. She listened to Mary tell her story, and then she wrote it down. Thomas Pringle, the secretary of London’s Anti-Slavery Society, was the editor, and he was also the financial backer of the project.
The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself was first published in the latter part of February, 1831 at the height of Britain’s Abolition movement. Abolition was (and still is) a movement to end slavery. The History of Mary Prince went to print three times that year. It was a successful strategy that aided in bringing about Emancipation. Historically, Emancipation was when enslaved people were made free. In the British Empire, this was 1 August 1834.
Harriet Jacobs
It was not Harriet Jacob's nature to give up without a fight. Born into slavery, Harriet Jacobs would thwart repeated sexual advancements made by her master for years, then run away to the North. She would later publish an account of her anguished life in her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Harriet's childhood was a happy one. "[We] lived together in a comfortable home," she wrote in her autobiography, "and, though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed that I was a piece of merchandise." She even found happiness after her mother's death, when she moved into the home of her mother's mistress -- a kind woman who nurtured the young Harriet, teaching her to read and sew, and seeing to her well-being. The happiness would not last, though. Upon the death of the benevolent mistress when Harriet was 12 years old, ownership of Harriet was transferred to the mistress' niece. But since the niece was only three years old, Harriet's actual master was the father, a Dr. James Norcom. This man would be the cause of a great deal of misery.
International Slavery Museum in Liverpool
image by Gilles Eli-Dit-Cosaque
The International Slavery Museum increases the understanding of transatlantic, chattel and other forms of enslavement. Through our collections, public engagement and research, we explore their impact and legacies.
We are a campaigning museum that actively engages with contemporary human rights issues. We address ignorance and challenge intolerance, building partnerships with museums, communities and organisations that share our vision.
Deep Racism: the Forgotten History of Human Zoos
image from human zoo in
Brussels, Belgium in 1958
In 1906, the Bronx Zoo kept Ota Benga on a human exhibit. The sign outside of her fenced in area of the primate exhibit read, “Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches. Weight, 103 pounds. Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner. Exhibited each afternoon during September.”
These sorts of, “human zoos,” continued even later. The Brussels 1958 World’s Fair kept a Congolese village on display. Even as late as April 1994, an Ivory Coast village was kept as part of an African safari in Port-Saint-Père (Planète Sauvage), near Nantes, France.
In Germany, as late as 2005, Augsburg’s zoo in Germany had similar exhibits. In August 2005, London Zoo also displayed humans wearing fig leaves, and in 2007, Adelaide Zoo housed people in a former ape enclosure by day. They were, of course, allowed to return home at night, unlike many of the earlier incarnations of these racist displays.
This American Life Podcast
There’s a museum in Baltimore that was created to memorialize the Black experience in America. It’s called The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. Our producer B.A. Parker went there as a kid, and its straightforward and sometimes disturbing look at history stuck with her. So she went back. (14 minutes)
*Once you open link scroll down to podcast chapter called History is Not a Toy
The Story Of A Memorial: The African Burial Ground In New York
by Ailsa Chang
In 1991, the federal government started construction on a new building in Lower Manhattan. But a little digging revealed something unexpected - the remains of 419 black people buried there since the 16- and 1700s. That discovery kicked off a fight between forces who wanted the building to go up and communities who wanted to honor the dead. Those communities eventually won, and now you can visit the African Burial Ground Memorial in Lower Manhattan.
Old Slave Mart Museum
Charleston, SC
The Old Slave Mart Museum is the first African-American slave museum. It is often staffed by individuals who trace their history to the enslaved people of Charleston. At one point during slavery, as many as 35-40% of enslaved people entered the United States through Charleston.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 40,000 artifacts and nearly 100,000 individuals have become members. The Museum opened to the public on September 24, 2016, as the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution.
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
I, Too, Sing America
PRODUCED BY ALICIA DESANTIS AND JOSH WILLIAMS
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEXEY SWALL, WRITTEN BY GRAHAM BOWLEY, INTERVIEWS BY TAMARA BEST, GRAPHICS BY ANJALI SINGHVI, VIDEO BY JONAH M. KESSEL
Appropriately for a public museum at the heart of Washington’s cultural landscape, the museum’s creators did not want to build a space for a black audience alone, but for all Americans. In the spirit of Langston Hughes’s poem “I, Too,” their message is a powerful declaration: The African-American story is an American story, as central to the country’s narrative as any other, and understanding black history and culture is essential to understanding American history and culture.