The Arkansas Freeman,
October 5, 1869
The Washington Bee
June 11, 1921
The Kansas City Plaindealer
July 2, 1943
Often referred to as “the first draft of history,” newspapers provide compelling insights into life in previous eras. With the support of the Department of History in the William J. Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the Libraries recently added an important collection of African American newspapers spanning a century and a half of history.
African American Newspapers Series 1, 1827-1998, offers full text from more than 270 newspapers from 35 states, including many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles, beginning with Freedom’s Journal (NY)—the first African American newspaper published in the United States. Other notable titles in this collection include The Colored Citizen (Kansas), Rights of All (New York), New York Age, L’Union (Louisiana), Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate (New York),and the Cleveland Gazette.
Arkansas titles in this collection Include the Arkansas Freeman (one issue from 1869), the Arkansas Mansion (1883-1884), the Arkansas State Press (1941- 1959), and Homeland (Forrest City, 1991-1999). The African American Newspapers database was created in partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress.
The new interface for African American Newspapers, introduced in Fall 2015, allows you great flexibility in searching and browsing papers.
- Search by keyword across the full text of paper stories or limit your search to story headlines.
- Search for specific types of articles, including:
- news
- opinion
- front page stories
- letters
- elections or legislative actions
- birth, marriage, or death announcements
- shipping news and commodity prices
- maps
- Limit your search by date or date range, by presidential terms, or by broads eras of U.S. History.
- Filter your search by geographical area, by newspaper name.
- Sort your search results in chronological order, newest to oldest, or with the best matches first.
These same enhancements apply to other resources on the Readex platform, including our subscription to the African Newspapers segment of the World News Archive. This collection provides access to more than 40 fully searchable African newspapers published between 1800 and 1922. African Newspapers features titles from Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Languages include English, German, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Sotho, and others.
Who says old news is no news? Check out African American Newspapers for a revealing window into our nation’s political, cultural, and economic past.