African American Perspectives In Print

This campaign launched in celebration of Douglass Day 2025. Thank you to all Douglass Day organizers and volunteers!

This campaign gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture through rare books, pamphlets, and related manuscripts from the Library of Congress. 

The majority of these items come primarily from the African American Perspectives Collection of the Rare Books and Special Collections Division and date from the 19th century. Most were written by African American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African American history. Titles in the collection include sermons on racial pride and political activism, annual reports of charitable, educational, and political organizations, college catalogs and graduation orations, biographies, slave narratives, speeches by members of Congress, legal documents, poetry, playbills, dramas, and librettos. Other materials focus on segregation, voting rights, violence against African Americans, anti-slavery organizations and investigative reports.

African American collections at the Library of Congress are shaped by the legacy of pioneering bibliographer and historian Daniel A. P. Murray, the second Black employee of the Library. Murray eventually donated his rich collection of pamphlets and books about the contributions of African American writers and organizations to the Library, where they still form the core of the Rare Book and Special Collection Division’s collecting on Black history and culture. A portion of Murray’s collection is included in this campaign.

Additional materials come from the Manuscript and Music Divisions of the Library. A broad range of materials documenting Black political, economic, and cultural life, these items date from 1839 to 1964. They include firsthand accounts of the Amistad Mutiny, National Negro Business League correspondence from the Booker T. Washington Papers, reports on Black economic opportunity, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund records, the Civil War diary of African American Union soldier Christian Fleetwood, a script from the musical “Shuffle Along,” abolitionist song books, and memoirs of bandleader James Reese Europe.