UMass Lowell Library Resources on Racism in the United States

A collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more.

Rare and unique items from the Library's vast African-American collections to the National Digital Library.

A division of the New York City Public Library.

Documents which have contributed to the shaping of African American history.

Another great collection from Documenting the American South.

From the Library of Congress, "Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938" contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.

The Frederick Douglass Papers documents the life and work of the most influential and best-known African American of the 19th century. It is planned to contain all of the content of the multi-volume Yale University Press print edition of Douglass’s speeches, autobiographies, correspondence, and other writings.

From the National Archives.

Includes information about the connection between the labor of enslaved persons in the cotton plantations and the textile mills of Lowell and Lawrence.

A historical overview traces American slavery from its earliest days through Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.

During the 36th Congress (1860 and 1861), over 200 slavery related amendments were introduced. The Corwin Amendment would have limited the power of the central government to end slavery.