LibGuides: Black History Month: Discovering Black History

On classifying blackness

Library collections at Lancaster University are organised using the BLISS classification system and subject headings. There are many useful classmarks and subject headings that will help you find material relevant to Black History which are listed below.

However, academics and librarians are aware that the act of organising knowledge according to classification schemes devised a long time ago can compound problems of white- and west- centricism: the act of treating white and 'western' as being the default.

We recognise this is problematic and can be offensive when outdated language is used. We recognise that there is much work to be done to maintain the ability to discover material related to black people, culture and history without perpetuating structural racism.

At Lancaster University Library we are lucky to have passionate staff working hard to remove these kinds of embedded institutional discriminations. We are connected to networks of academics and students who support this work by making suggestions and recommendations that we can take forward, and we are working on making it known that we want to be better and that with as many people involved as possible we can continue to push for radical change.

Useful classmarks for History

Books and pamphlets are shelved on both A and B floors. Key classmarks are:

Subject	Classmark
Racial Anthropology	HBR
Race relations	KDQI
Slavery	KDQIS KDQIW NEQ
African American History, Civil Rights Movement	NEQ NER
African History	OS-OXY
African Language and linguistics	WK
Black music	VXZ
Black American English	YAZAL
African English	YAZE
Caribbean English	YAZU

Useful subject headings for Black History

Most of the time it is easiest to search with keywords. Subject headings are used to bring material on a similar topic together. Below are some subject headings that will direct you to interesting material.

Africans - followed by a further topic, for example:
- Africans - England
African history
Afro-American - followed by a further topic, for example:
- Afro-American art
Afrocentrism
Black business enterprises
Black race
Blacks - followed by a country name or further topic, for example:
- Blacks - employment
- Blacks - England
- Blacks - History
Blacks in literature

Search for country, continent, region and tribal names. Using outdated colonial names will find older material, for example Zimbabwe OR Rhodesia.

You can use the 'Browse' feature in OneSearch to look up Subjects.

Library Collections

African Diaspora, 1860-Present This link opens in a new window
Essential for understanding Black history and culture, African Diaspora, 1860-Present allows scholars to discover the migrations, communities, and ideologies of the African Diaspora through the voices of people of African descent. With a focus on communities in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France, the collection includes never-before digitized primary source documents, including personal papers, organizational papers, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera.
American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society This link opens in a new window
American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society provides a history of the American people and a testament to the growth of the nation from the colonial period through to the twentieth century. The periodicals focused on American concerns and were predominantly published in the United States or Canada, though some were published overseas by Americans living abroad. The collection offers multiple perspectives on the thought, culture, and society of North America through the eyes of those who lived it, showing how history affected citizens from all walks of life.
American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new window
This unique collection documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945

BFI Player including Black History Month and Black Stories All staff and students will now be able to access the BFI Player the on-demand service available to universities and colleges across the UK and the leading platform for world and independent cinema. As well as having access to over 700 British, world and classic cinema titles, they can search collections including Black History Month, Queer classics, Japanese cinema & visionary directors, and access to over 12,000 archive shorts and features from the BFI national and regional archives covering all aspects of British life spanning the past 120 years.

Chicago Defender Archive (1909-2010) This link opens in a new window
Searchable full-text and page images from The Chicago Defender newspaper archive.
Colonial America This link opens in a new window
Colonial America consists of all 1,450 volumes of the 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London, plus all extracted documents associated with them. This unique collection of largely manuscript material from the archives of the British government is an invaluable one for students and researchers of all aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history and the early-modern Atlantic world.
Covering the period 1606 to 1822, CO 5 constitutes the original correspondence of the colonial governments with the Board of Trade, the Secretary of State for the Southern Department and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, together holding responsibility for the British possessions in mainland North America and the Caribbean.

Module 1: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries
Module 2: Towards Revolution
Module 3: The American Revolution
Module 4: Legislation and Politics in the Colonies
Module 5: Growth, Trade and Developement
Global Commodities This link opens in a new window
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.
This is a truly global resource documenting the trade in 15 commodities around the world from c1500 to the present day.
The 15 major commodities are: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, tea, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, and wine and spitirts.
Migration to New Worlds This link opens in a new window
Showcases unique primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration. Explore Colonial Office files on emigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolours, and oral histories supplemented by carefully selected secondary research aids.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
Designed for both teaching and research, this resource brings together documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world covering an extensive time period from 1490. Close attention has been given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery This link opens in a new window
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. It contains cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts, and maps from many different countries covering the history of the slave trade.
Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition sheds light on the abolitionist movement, the conflicts within it, the anti- and pro-slavery arguments of the period, and the debates on the subject of colonization. It explores all facets of the controversial topic, with a focus on economic, gender, legal, religious, and government issues.

Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World charts the inception of slavery in Africa and its rise as perpetuated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, placing particular emphasis on the Caribbean, Latin America, and United States. More international in scope than Part I, this collection was developed by an international editorial board with scholars specializing in North American, European, African, and Latin American/Caribbean aspects of the slave trade.

Part III: The Institution of Slavery expands the depth of coverage of the topic. Part III explores, in vivid detail, the inner workings of slavery from 1492 to 1888. Through legal documents, plantation records, first-person accounts, newspapers, government records, and other primary sources, this collection reveals how enslaved people struggled against the institution. These rare works explore slavery as a legal and labor system, the relationship between slavery and religion, freed slaves, the Shong Masacre, the Dememara insurrection, and many other aspects and events.

Part IV: Age of Emancipation includes numerous rare documents related to emancipation in the United States, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean. This collection supports the study of many areas, including activities of the federal government in dealing with former slaves and the Freedmen's Bureau, views of political parties and postwar problems with the South, documents of the British and French government on the slave trade, reports from the West Indies and Africa, and other topics.
Washington Post Archive (1877-2004) This link opens in a new window
This historical newspaper provides researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection This link opens in a new window
A collection of 19th-century anti-slavery pamphlets from the private collection of Henry Joseph Wilson (1833-1914), the distinguished Liberal Member of Parliament for Sheffield.
The collection is of particular importance for the study of the activities of the provincial philanthropic societies, such as the Birmingham and Midland Freedmen's Aid Association, the Birmingham and West Bromwich Ladies' Negro's Friend Society, the Glasgow Emancipation Society, the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society, and the Sheffield Ladies Female Anti Slavery Society. Of interest is the prominent role of women in the movement, who formed themselves into societies which lobbied MPs and printed pamphlets on the conditions of slaves. Here we have details of what was sold at their bazaars to raise funds and lists of names of subscribers, the minutiae which bring alive the history of the movement.
Coverage: 1761-1900

Black Cultural Archives

Black Cultural Archives
Black Cultural Archives is the only national heritage centre dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating the histories of African and Caribbean people in Britain.

Black History in Lancaster

Lancaster Black History Group

Facing the past, transforming the future: doing reparative history with communities in Lancaster.

National Archives

Slavery or slave owners
A guide from the National Archives for finding details of historical slaves and slave owners.
Black British social and political history in the 20th century
A guide to finding records relating to the experience and influence of black British people in the 20th century.
Bound for Britain
A classroom resource for (Key stage 3-4) exploring experiences of immigration to Britain.

Black History Month