This page suggests sources for the study of African American authors from slavery to the present day, including fiction, poetry, autobiography, and drama.

Other guides with helpful information include "Citation Help" (MLA tab) and this guide's tab for "Journal Articles."  

For more help, see the options for "Ask a Librarian," Research Consultations, and the Writing Center.

Use MARQCAT to identify books or parts of books with relevant information. In addition to names of authors in the syllabus, such as Jordan, June or Kincaid, Jamaica, examples of places to begin a subject search include:

• American poetry--African American authors
• black nationalism--United States
• black power
• civil rights movements--United States--history
• Harlem Renaissance
• slave narratives

The Marquette Libraries provide access to hundreds of databases, including periodicals and newspapers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Explore the subject listings in the drop-down menu. The following will be good starting points for the final research paper.

The first two suggestions are best starting places for literary authors, such as Jamaica Kincaid.

*Literature Online (online database)  Begin with the "Authors" link in the left column; contains thousands of profiles for authors of all eras and genres. 

African American Lives (Oxford University Press, 2004) Raynor Reference E185.96 .A446 2004

African American Poets: Lives, Works & Sources  Raynor Reference PS153 .N5P48 2002

African American Writers (2d ed., Scribner's, 2001) Raynor Reference PS153 .N5A344 (2 volumes)

American National Biography (online database) Thousands of men and women whose lives have shaped the nation.

Biography in Context (online database) Broad in scope, but good coverage of authors

Literary Reference Center (online database) Search author name, then use the "Biography" tab to narrow results

Writing African American Women: An Encyclopedia of Literature by and About Women of Color (Greenwood Press., 2006) Raynor Reference PS153 .N5W756 (2 volumes)

A Companion to African-American Literature. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Memorial Level 4 Reading Room PS153.N5 C592 2010  

Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: the Black Experience in the Americas, online (2d ed., Macmillan, 2006) 6 volumes also in Raynor Reference, E185 .E54 2006

Encyclopedia of African American History: from the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass 1619-1895; and 1896 to the Present, online via Oxford Reference.

Encyclopedia of African American Society (Sage Pubs, 2005) 2 volumes in Raynor Reference E185 .E546 2005

Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File, 2006) Raynor Reference PS153 .N5B675 2006

Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature (Greenwood Press, 2005) PS153 .N5G73 2005

Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and poetry (Greenwood Press, 2006) 3 volumes in Raynor Reference PS303 .G74 2006

The Harvard Guide to African-American History (Harvard Univesity Press, 2001) Raynor Reference E185 .H326 2001

The Handbook of African American Literature (University Press of Florida, 2004) Raynor Reference PS153 .N5E87 2004  Contains excellent chronology of works 1745-2002

Harlem Renaissance: A Gale Critical Companion. 3 volumes in Raynor Reference PS153 .N5H245 2003

The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, online (Oxford University Press, 1997) Also in Raynor Reference PS153 .N5O96 1997

The African American Mosaic (Library of Congress) for the study of black history and culture.

The Antislavery Literature Project; documents of US historical slavery

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project   Contains digitized images of thousands of first-person accounts of slavery, plus 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.

Digital Schomburg: African American Women Writers of the 19th Century 52 published works (in full text) provide access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.

Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research (Harvard)

First-Person Narratives of the American South (1860-1920)  Contains digitized images of diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives from Southerners, documenting the culture of the 19th century American South.

Frederick Douglass Papers (Library of Congress)

Martin Luther King, Jr. Project (Stanford)

Paul Laurence Dunbar Digital Collection (Wright State)

Poets.org (Academy of American Poets) has resource guide for notable African American poets, such as Langston Hughes.

Voice of the Shuttle: African American Literature comprehensive free site for literary information--general resources plus works and projects of African American writers and links to individual author sites.

Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color (University of Minnesota)