This website, developed by ProQuest, provides a selection of freely available primary source documents that may be used by a wide range of students, from middle and high school students to college students and independent scholars. Examples of assignments may include National History Day projects or research papers about Black Freedom.

The website contains approximately 1,600 documents focused on six different phases of Black Freedom:

  • Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
  • The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
  • Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
  • The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
  • The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
  • The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)

Documents presented here represent a selection of primary sources available in several ProQuest databases. The databases represented in this website include American Periodicals, Black Abolitionist Papers, ProQuest History Vault, ProQuest Congressional, Supreme Court Insight and Alexander Street’s Black Thought and Culture.