Getting Started with News Sources
The following databases allow you to search through historical newspapers for primary sources–a contemporary account of the Civil Rights Movement. The sources on the left can be used to find articles written by and for African Americans. The sources on the right offer a broader perspective, including major US newspapers such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal as well as hundreds of local and regional newspapers
If you are hoping to learn about African American Newspapers instead of searching for articles, the Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America and the Encyclopedia of African American Society are a great place to start. Try searching for “Newspapers”, “News Media”, “Journalism” or the names of any of the individual newspapers listed below.
| African American News Databases | General American News Databases |
|---|---|
Black Historical Newspapers searches through six major African American Newspapers (different from those included in the African American Newspapers database below.) Many of these newspapers have articles in the Encyclopedia of African American Society if you would like to learn more about them. The newspapers included are:
Search Tip: Click on “Advanced Search” and changed publication date to “Specific date range” to limit your search to the 1960s. |
ProQuest Historical Newspapers allows you to search through all of the titles included in Black Historical Newspapers along with the following major US newspapers:
Search Tip: In order to search specifically through the 1960s, click on “Advanced Search” above the search window. Change publication date to “Specific date range” and and change the years to 1960-1969. |
African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 searches through roughly 270 historical African American Newspapers, eleven of which were publishing during the 1960s:
Search Tip: to narrow the time period to the 1960s, enter 1960-1969 in the “Custom Date Range” box. |
Access Newspaper Archive is a great place to start if you are looking for local news articles or if you would like to search for Civil Rights news articles from a specific location. Clicking on browse will take you to a map where you can browse by state. For example, Access Newspaper Archive contains seventeen publications that were in circulation between 1960 and 1969 in the state of Michigan. A note of caution: the archive is composed of digital images of newspapers scanned from microfilm and the quality of the search function varies from publication to publication.Search Tip: in order to narrow the decade to the 1960s, click on “Search” in the black menu bar. This will open the advanced search page, where you can adjust the “Between Dates” accordingly. |
| Ethnic NewsWatch allows you to search through journals, magazines, and newspapers from minority presses. There are over 50,000 articles about African Americans in the 1960s. Search Tip: Click on “Advanced Search” to narrow the time period to the 1960s and the Ethnic group to “African American” if it is appropriate for your project. |