I’ve come to learn the importance of archives while working as a graduate student for the African American Digital Humanities Initiative (AADHUM). Our work has centered around how digital tools and data can represent the longevity, diversity, and uniqueness of the African Diaspora. As always, I focus on Black women and their work so I decided to compile a list of resources on Black women. You can find Black women in many types of collections, but typically archival work in the academy marginalizes people of color. That said, a focus on archives that explicitly focus on Black women turns up short. Deborah Gray White has a great resource for Black women’s archives titled “Mining the Forgotten.”

Black Women’s Archives

• The Ida B. Wells Papers at the University of Chicago
• The Irma Mclaurin Black Feminist Archive at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
• National Archives for Black Women’s History
• Black Women at Virginia Tech History Project
• A Guide to the Black Texas Women Archive, 1860-1865, 1897-1994
• African American Women at Duke University Libraries
• African American Women Writers of the 19th Century at the Schomburg Center
• Point of View (African American Women)
• Black Lesbian Archives
• Black Women Oral History Project Interviews, 1976–1981
• the Black Women in the Middle West Project (BWMW)
• Kansas City Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs
• The EBONY Archives
• Audre Lorde Archive
• Audre Lorde Papers
• Octavia Butler Archive
• Coretta Scott King, 1968
• The Digital Shange project
• Gloria Richardson
• Rev. Addie Wyatt
• Mary Lou Williams
• Congress of Black Women of Manitoba Inc. fonds
• Elizabeth Allen Papers
• Gloria Brown papers, 1964-67
• Helen Jackson Claytor papers, 1924-2005
• Gwendolyn S. Cruzat papers, 1964-1990
• Linda DeLeon papers, 1981-2013
• Marie Dessaw papers, 1956-1985
• Yvonne Duffy papers, 1952-2000 (bulk 1966-1999)
• Ruth Ellis papers, 1900s-2000
• Lillian Gill papers, 1950s-2007
• Gwendolyn Midlo Hall papers, 1939-1991
• Eva Jessye collection, 1927-1992
• Chrystal G. Tibbs papers, 1913-2013, bulk 1990-2013
• Albert H. and Emma M. Wheeler papers, 1938-1994
• Mattie Azalia Willis papers, 1928-1970
• Women of Color Task Force, University of Michigan
• Ann Allen Shockley: an annotated primary and secondary bibliography, compiled by Rita B. Dandridge
• Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection
• Records of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, 1895-1992
• The Mary Turner Project
• The Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society
• Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project
• Third World Women’s Alliance, Bay Area chapter records
• Nannie Helen Burroughs
• The Gloria Naylor Archives
• Michele Wallace papers
• Zora Neale Hurston Collection
• Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection

Black women also exist across the world. So the list will need more representation of non-U.S. women as it grows. Some of these archives are fully accessible online, while others require gaining access through a university or government institution. I strongly advise you to reach out anyway, and then consider making some of your work digitally available to a wider audience.

If you’d like to add a resource, send me a message on the Contact Me page, and I’ll update the page. Please share this resource widely, and subscribe to the blog to stay up to date. If you’re looking for bibliographies on Black women, check out this list.

Thank you to Aprille McKay & Brett Lougheed for their submissions.