Research Guides: Jim Crow Justice, Hist 3142/AFRS 3142: Periodicals

Newspapers and magazines

A selection of databases containing historical newspapers or magazines, focusing on periodicals including African American voices and those published in the South.

Accessible Archives
Primary source material from 18th- and 19th-century publications, including African-American newspapers and Civil War narratives.
African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998
Chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience, African American Newspapers, Series 1, features 280 newspapers from 35 states, including many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles.
African American Newspapers, Series 2, 1835-1956
Complements and expands on African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998, with more than 75 newly available papers published in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
African American history, culture and daily life in the 19th and 20th centuries. Dates of coverage: 1825-1996
America's Historical Newspapers
Features cover-to-cover reproductions of hundreds of historic newspapers, providing more than one million pages as fully text-searchable facsimile images.
Atlanta Constitution, 1868-1984
Full text.
Baltimore Afro-American, 1893-1988
Full text.
Black Life in America
This primary source collection offers a window into centuries of African American history, culture and daily life—as well as the ways the dominant Culture has portrayed and perceived people of African descent. Content comes from American and global news sources, including current and historical Black publications.
Black Studies Center
Historical and current material for researching the past, present and future of African-Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable component databases. Includes videos, interviews, journal indexing, newspapers, dissertations, and more. Dates of Coverage: 1780-Present.
Chicago Defender, 1909 - 2010
Full-text.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Includes a U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present as well as select digitized newspaper page in PDF format. Dates of Coverage: 1836-1922.
Ethnic American Newspapers, 1799-1971
Features more than 130 fully searchable newspapers in 10 languages from 25 states—including many rare 19th-century titles.
Google News Archive
Searchable database of scanned newspapers. Dates of Coverage: 1700s-Present, depending on newspaper.
New York Amsterdam News Archive, 1922 - 1993
Full text.
Nineteenth-century U.S. Newspapers
Digital facsimile images of both full pages and clipped articles for hundreds of 19th century U.S. newspapers and advanced searching capabilities. For each issue, the newspaper is captured from cover-to-cover, providing access to every article, advertisement and illustration. Dates of Coverage: NA.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Historical access to Chicago Defender, Detroit Free Press, Hartford Courant, Los Angeles Times, New York Amsterdam News, The Atlanta Constitution, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian and The Observer, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Civil War Era Collection, Le Monde, Los Angeles Sentinel, Toronto Star, and South China Morning Post.
St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1874 - 2003
Full text.

Hint: To search Compass for other African American newspapers, search on exactly this, limiting your search to Newspapers:
"African American newspapers"

To search in WorldCat, subject search on "African American newspapers", limiting your search to Serial Publications.

Our guide on newspapers.

Special newspapers

American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside