African American History
The National Archives holds a wealth of material documenting the African American experience and highlights these resources online, in programs, and through traditional and social media.
Explore our records documenting African American History through the African American Research page and within the National Archives Catalog. See more resources on the Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday page and the Juneteenth page.
Featured Video
Military service and pension records help tell the story of Charles Sprout, a soldier in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) during the Civil War.
Today's Document: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday
The Emancipation Proclamation and Juneteenth
Black Wall Street: 100 Years Since the Tulsa Race Massacre
Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm: “Unbought and Unbossed”
National Inventor’s Day: Marjorie S. Joyner
The American Image: Portrait of Black Chicago - DOCUMERICA photographs by John White
“Records of Rights” in Washington, DC
"Documented Rights" traveling exhibit
NARA Preservation Tumblr: MLK's Selective Service System Draft Card
NARA Flickr: Civil Rights March on Washington, DC, August 28, 1963
Truman Library: Harry S. Truman and Civil Rights
Truman Library: Desegregation of the Armed Forces
Truman Library: The President’s Committee on Civil Rights
Kennedy Library: The Struggle for Civil Rights
Kennedy Library: Correspondence between Martin Luther King Jr. and the White House
Johnson Library: Documents and telephone conversations relating to Martin Luther King Jr.
Google Cultural Institute: Black College Life in the New Deal
Rediscovering Black History: The blog of the Black History Guide, shares records relating to the African American experience at the National Archives
AOTUS: Celebrating Black History Month: Hidden Gems
AOTUS: Celebrating Black History Month
Annotations: Digitizing Boston’s Desegregation Records for the Classroom
Education Updates: Kidnapping of Free People of Color
Education Updates: We Shall Overcome: Anxiety and Optimism for the March on Washington
Education Updates: Jackie Robinson & Civil Rights
Education Updates: Striking Down “Freedom of Choice” Plans for School Desegregation: Green v. New Kent County
Ford in Focus: Recognition of Black History Month
Forward with Roosevelt: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Battle to End Lynching
FDR Library Tumblr: 1941–Plans for a March on Washington
Hoover Heads: Mary Bethune: Adviser to PresidentsHoover Heads: Desegregating the Commerce Department
JFK Library Archives: Making the March on Washington, August 28, 1963
JFK Library Archives: “Understand Our Urgency:” Oral Histories by Black Americans
National Archives News: Records Help Honor Legacy of Trailblazing Black Physician
National Archives News: Philadelphia 15 Exonerated Thanks to NARA Personnel Records Research
National Archives News: In Memoriam: Harry Belafonte (1927–2023)
National Archives News: Bisa Butler Quilts Harlem Hellfighters into History
National Archives News: In Memoriam: Nichelle Nichols (1932–2022)
National Archives News: Noted Historian Discusses Juneteenth’s Place in American History
National Archives News: Featured Document: Remembering the Tulsa Race Massacre
National Archives News: National Archives Unveils Photos of Buffalo Soldiers at West Point
National Archives News: Pandemic Telework Project Sparks Increase in Black History Records Accessibility
National Archives News: National Archives Safeguards Original ‘Juneteenth’ General Order
National Archives News: Confederate Slave Payrolls Shed Light on Lives of 19th-Century African American Families
National Archives News: Journalist Shares Stories Behind Civil Rights Cold Cases
NDC Blog: Lionel Hampton, Jazz Legend and President’s “Ambassador of Goodwill”
Pieces of History: Celebrating African Artists at the National Archives
Pieces of History: Facial Hair Friday: Carlton Chapman and the Ultimate Sacrifice
Pieces of History: Historic Staff Spotlight: Lucille Joppy
Pieces of History: Dr. Charles Drew: A Pioneer in Blood Transfusions
Pieces of History: Historic Staff Spotlight: Josef C. James
Pieces of History: Historic Staff Spotlight: Robert L. Clarke
Pieces of History: Marian Anderson’s 1939 Easter Concert
Pieces of History: Historic Staff Spotlight: Lillian Grandy
Pieces of History: Facial Hair Friday: Robert Smalls
Pieces of History: LGBTQ+ History Month: Barbara Jordan
Pieces of History: James Baldwin and Freedom Summer
Pieces of History: Facial Hair Friday: The Honorable Thurgood Marshall
Pieces of History: The Fight for the Right to Marry: The Loving v. Virginia Case
Pieces of History: We Remember Civil Rights Legend John Lewis
Pieces of History: The Tulsa Massacre
Pieces of History: New York City U.S. Custom House Employee: Matthew Henson
Pieces of History: Mae Jemison: First Black Woman in Space
Pieces of History: The Gridlock of Racial Segregation: When the Light Turns from Brown to Green
Pieces of History: 19th Amendment at 100: Mary Church Terrell
Pieces of History: Victory at Home and Abroad: Combating Segregation in the Armed Forces
Pieces of History: Marjorie S. Joyner: More than an Inventor
Pieces of History: The Maker of Pilots: Aviator and Civil Rights Activist Willa Beatrice Brown
Pieces of History: “Forgotten Soldier” at American Revolution Museum at Yorktown
Pieces of History: The “Roots” of Genealogy at the National Archives
Pieces of History: Facial Hair Friday: George Washington Carver’s Nuts for Peanuts!
Pieces of History: Facial Hair Friday: Joseph Rainey the First African American in the House
Pieces of History: LBJ and MLK
Pieces of History: Bienvenue à Port-au-Prince, Monsieur Douglass
Pieces of History: His Was “Service Honest and Faithful, Character Excellent”
Pieces of History: Black History Month: The 54th Massachusetts
Pieces of History: Facial Hair Friday: In Honor of MLK
Pieces of History: Honoring Justice Thurgood Marshall: The Right Man and the Right Place
Pieces of History: The Drawings of Charles Alston
Pieces of History: African American History at the National Archives
Pieces of History: An Act to Establish the NMAAHC
Pieces of History: Celebrating the Life of an Ancestor Who Was a “12 Years a Slave”
Pieces of History: January 18, 1964–Martin Luther King Jr. & LBJ
Preservation at the National Archives Tumblr: MLK's Selective Service System Draft Card
Today's Document: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Portrait
Text Message: Records Related to African American History in the National Register of Historic Places
Text Message: Remembering Jonestown 40 Years Later
Text Message: Keyes v. School District Number One, Denver, Colorado: Eliminating the “Root and Branch” of School Segregation
Text Message: War of Words: Race-Based Propaganda During World War II
Text Message: The Department of State Reports on the George Foreman-Muhammad Ali Fight (‘The Rumble in the Jungle’) 1974
Text Message: Firefly Project and the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion (“Smoke Jumpers”)
Text Message: NAACP vs the Washington DC Police Department
Text Message: African Americans and the American War for Independence
Unwritten Record: Unnoticed: African Americans in Union Army Camps During the Civil War
Unwritten Record: African American Women in the Military During WWII
Unwritten Record: Now Showing: George Washington Carver on Kodachrome
Unwritten Record: Stock Footage Spotlight: Historically Black Colleges and Universities in WWII
Unwritten Record: Cartographic Records Relating to African American History
Unwritten Record: 60 Years On: The Little Rock Nine
Unwritten Record: A Brief Look at African American Soldiers in the Great War
Unwritten Record: Spotlight: Celebrating Black History Month
Unwritten Record: African American Filmmaker William Greaves on Booker T. Washington & Frederick Douglass
Unwritten Record: Dr. Paul Owen: The First PHS Optometrist
Unwritten Record: Making The March
Education Updates: Kidnapping of Free People of Color
Education Updates: We Shall Overcome: Anxiety and Optimism for the March on Washington
Education Updates: Jackie Robinson & Civil Rights
Education Updates: Striking Down “Freedom of Choice” Plans for School Desegregation: Green v. New Kent County
Young Learners Program: Meet the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lesson Plans & Teaching Activities
Oh Freedom! Sought Under the Fugitive Slave Act
From Slave to Soldier: The Story of Hubbard Pryor
Black Soldiers in the Civil War (1)
Black Soldiers in the Civil War (2)
Comparing Civil War Recruitment Posters
From Slavery to Juneteenth: Emancipation and Ending Enslavement
Comparing and Contrasting the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment and General Order No. 3
Congress and Harriet Tubman's Claim for a Pension
To What Extent was Reconstruction a Revolution? (1)
To What Extent was Reconstruction a Revolution? (2)
From Dred Scott to the Civil Rights Act of 1875
Confronting Workplace Discrimination on the WWII Home Front
Integration of the U.S. Armed Forces
Analyzing Jackie Robinson's White House Letter
Analyzing a Photograph of Jackie Robinson
Analyzing a Letter from Jackie Robinson: "Fair Play and Justice"
Responding to the Murder of Harry T. Moore
Examining Where Rosa Parks Sat
The Impact of Bloody Sunday in Selma
Analyzing a Letter to Congress About Bloody Sunday
Congress Protects the Right to Vote: The Voting Rights Act of 1965
Martin Luther King Jr. and Memphis Sanitation Workers
Education - Presidential Libraries
Kennedy Library: Leaders in the Struggle for Civil Rights - Martin Luther King Jr.
Reagan Library: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Truman Library: Desegregation of the Armed Forces
Truman Library: Harry Truman and Civil Rights
Truman Library: The President's Committee on Civil Rights
Truman Library: Freedom to Serve: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services
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The March (1963, restored) To mark the 50th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom, the Motion Picture Preservation Lab completed a full digital restoration of James Blue's monumental film, The March, in 2008. |
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The March on Washington in Photographs This Inside the Vaults video short follows the subject of the photograph, Edith Lee-Payne of Detroit, who celebrated her 12th birthday by attending the March on Washington with her mother. |
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"Civil Rights: Then and Now" Highlights of the National Conversation on Rights and Justice in Atlanta in 2016. Moderated by Jelani William Cobb, contributing editor to the New Yorker and associate professor of history and the director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut. |
Historical Videos
Civil Rights—1965: Where Has the Year Gone?
The Pilot District Project, Washington, DC, 1968–1971
A Study of Negro Artists: Documentary and outtakes
Martin Luther King Press Conference, February 7, 1968 (audio only)
Additional Videos
Freedman’s Village Discussion in Partnership with Arlington National Cemetery
Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South
The Rope: A True Story of Murder, Heroism, and the Dawn of the NAACP
The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship
African American Women in the Suffrage Movement and the Battle for the Vote
Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era
Emancipation Proclamation 150th Anniversary at the National Archives
African American Life in Washington, DC, Before Emancipation
Madame C. J. Walker in the National Archives
A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Revolutionary Movements Then and Now: Black Power and Black Lives Matter
The 14th Amendment’s Shield of National Protection
Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
Lincoln's Gamble: How the Emancipation Proclamation Changed the Course of the Civil War
Facing Slavery’s Legacy at Georgetown University
Protecting America's Treasures: Black History in the Vault
The Young Learners Program: Meet The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Additional Resources
African American Research: Highlights from Our Collection
Overview of Black History resources on Archives.gov
African Americans - Reference Reports
Black Family Research: Records of Post–Civil War Federal Agencies at the National Archives
Findings on the MLK Assassination
The Modern Civil Rights Movement (National Archives at Chicago)
Researching Slavery and Freedom in the National Archives at Philadelphia
Military Resources: Blacks in the Military
Photos of Buffalo Soldiers at West Point
Pictures of African Americans During World War II
From the Center for Legislative Archives
Congress in the Archives Tumblr: Posts Relating to African American History
Benjamin Franklin's Petition to Congress asking for the Abolition of Slavery
Petition for Universal Suffrage
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Congress and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Congress and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Presidential Libraries
Donald J. Trump Library
Proclamation on Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday, 2021
Proclamation on National African American History Month, 2020
Presidential Proclamation on National African American History Month, 2019
Barack Obama Library
Dedication of the National Museum of African American History
Civil Rights Summit at LBJ Library Keynote Address, 4/10/2014
George W. Bush Library
George W. Bush Library - African American History Archive
President Discusses Black History Month in Radio Address
William J. Clinton Library
Clinton Digital Library: Black Americans
Remarks by Vice President Al Gore on Martin Luther King Day, 1/17/2000
George H.W. Bush Library
Civil Rights (Bush Presidential)
Civil Rights (Bush Vice Presidential)
Civil Rights (Rev. Thaddeus Garrett Files)
George H.W. Bush Library - Justice Clarence Thomas Nomination.
Ronald Reagan Library
Reagan Library - Proclamation 5431: Establishing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1/18/86
President Reagan's remarks at the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Signing, 11/2/83
President Reagan's Remarks at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School on 1/15/86
President Reagan's Radio Address to the Nation on Martin Luther King Jr. on 1/18/86
President Reagan's Address on Martin Luther King's Birthday from the Oval Office, 1/15/87
Ronald Reagan Library Topic Guide: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Gerald R. Ford Library
"Inclusive America, Under Attack," New York Times, 8/8/1999
President Ford's Message on the Observance of Black History Week, 1975
President Ford's Message on the Observance of Black History Month, 1976
Lyndon B. Johnson Library
Tumblr Posts Relating to African American History
Documents and telephone conversations relating to Martin Luther King, Jr.
LBJ and Martin Luther King Jr. speak after JFK's assassination (November 25, 1963)
LBJ and Martin Luther King Jr. discuss the Voting Rights Act (January 15, 1965)
John F. Kennedy Library
Robert F. Kennedy’s Statement (with audio) on Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Correspondence between Martin Luther King Jr. and the White House
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library
Eisenhower Library images on Civil Rights
Marian Anderson sings the National Anthem at the 1957 Inauguration
Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Legacy program, 9/24/2011
Citizens' Letters on the Little Rock Crisis
Civil Rights and the Little Rock Integration Crisis
Civil Rights and the Eisenhower Administration
Civil Rights and the Emmett Till Case
Harry S. Truman Library
The President’s Committee on Civil Rights
Harry S. Truman and Civil Rights
Harry S. Truman Desegregation of the Armed Forces
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
Eleanor Roosevelt and the Tuskegee Airmen
Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Anderson
Herbert Hoover Library
“Echoes of the Voice of Martin Luther King Jr. Live with and Speak to Us” 2013
“Civil Rights Under Three Hats: The Photography of Matt Heron” 2014
"Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality by Kasey S. Pipes" 2008
Prologue Resources for African American History
The Scottsboro Boys: Injustice in AlabamaSafe for Democracy: Black National Guard Soldiers in the Great War (Winter 2017–18)
Tracing an Atrocity: How an Obscure Affidavit in the National Archives Unraveled a Historical Mystery (Summer 2017)
Testing the 15th Amendment (Winter 2016)
Tea and Equality (Summer 2015)
The Scottsboro Boys: Injustice in Alabama (Spring 2014)
Ancestors from the West Indies (Fall/Winter 2013)
The Rejection of Elizabeth Mason: The Case of a “Free Colored” Revolutionary Widow (Summer 2011)
Slavery and Emancipation in the Nation’s Capital (Spring 2010)
No Pensions for Ex-Slaves (Summer 2010)
In Freedom’s Shadow (Fall 2010)
Face to Face with History (Fall 2009)
Lynching: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the Outrage over the Frazier Baker Murder (Fall 2008)
Jim Crow, Meet Lieutenant Robinson: A 1944 Court-Martial (Spring 2008)
Exodus to Kansas (Summer 2008)
"Pre-Bureau" Records and Civil War African American Genealogy (Summer 2007)
Voices of Emancipation: Union Pension Files Giving Voice to Former Slaves (Winter 2005)
Finding Place for the Negro: Robert C. Weaver and the Groundwork for the Civil Rights (Spring 2005)
Sealing the Sacred Bonds of Holy Matrimony: Freedmen's Bureau Marriage Records (Spring 2005)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka: A Landmark Case Unresolved Fifty Years Later (Spring 2004)
“Incited by the Love of Liberty”: The Amistad Captives and the Federal Courts (Spring 2003)
The Freedmen’s Bureau Preservation Project (Summer 2002)
Black Men in Navy Blue During the Civil War (Fall 2001)
The Rost Home Colony, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana (Fall 2001)
Researching African Americans in the U.S. Army, 1866–1890: Buffalo Soldiers and Black Infantrymen (Spring 2001)
Living with the Hydra: The Documentation of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Federal Records (Winter 2000)
Garrison’s Constitution: The Covenant with Death and How It Was Made (Winter 2000)
Racial Identity and the Case of Captain Michael Healy, USRCS (Fall 1997)
The Emancipation Proclamation: An Act of Justice (Summer 1993)
Marriage Registers of Freedmen (Fall 1973)