Special Collections: African American Studies Research Guide

Fall 2022
In honor of the 200th anniversary of Harriet Tubman's birth, this exhibition explores depictions of Harriet Tubman in nineteenth and twentieth century literature and how writers through the years have chosen to pass on the story of this legendary woman.

Fall 2022
Recorded in Fall 2021, UD history students and their professor, Dr. Roger Horowitz, conducted 25 interviews focusing on the relationship between the University and African Americans, many of whom are community members or former UD students or employees. Thematic excerpts from the interviews are presented in this exhibition with audio clips from the full interviews.

Fall 2021
This exhibition explores the many accomplishments of Pauline Alice Young, Delaware educator, librarian, historian, and activist. Photographs, newspaper articles, letters, and other material shed light on Young’s life, including her commitment to civil rights, her passion for Black history, and her dedication as a community leader in a changing twentieth century.

Fall 2019
America has been tainted by the moral stain of slavery since colonial times. Even though the evidence reveals that the presence of enslaved African peoples in North America dates as far back as the early sixteenth century, a consensus around the date of 1619 for the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the Virginia colony has become firmly established in the current discourse. This year marks 400 years since that fateful turning point, with centuries of exploitation, anti-Black violence, degradation, and cultural genocide trailing in its wake. As we collectively engage in somber remembrance of this shameful period in our history, this exhibition demonstrates the excellence and fortitude of the Black experience, as it rose from the ashes of a war-torn nation.

Spring 2018
This exhibition focuses on a-changin’ times for University of Delaware (UD) students in 1968, especially highlighting the activism of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This minority group and its associates gained notice through election to the Student Government Association (SGA), leadership of campus protests, and reporting and advocacy through their underground newspaper, The Heterodoxical Voice (THV). King's assassination on April 4 was a pivotal mark in the year. National issues of racial and economic inequalities came into local focus as Wilmingtonians responded to the murder with riots and the state’s governor countered by ordering the Delaware National Guard to occupy the city.

Spring 2017
This exhibition focuses on the life of Solomon Bayley, who was born enslaved in Kent County, Delaware, in about 1771. Bayley later gained his freedom and went on to become an author, farmer, and lay preacher.

Fall 2017
Despite being allied with the Union during the Civil War, Delaware remained a slave state until 1865, when the ratification of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution banned slavery nationwide. In general, the state was divided along north/south lines, with northern New Castle County being primarily anti-slavery and southern Sussex County opposing abolition. The state government saw numerous attempts to repeal slavery via legislative means, but these divides meant that none of these bills gained much traction.

Fall 2017
This exhibition highlights rare and significant items that illustrate the varied strains of African American literary and intellectual life in play over the past hundred years — many of which remain relevant discussions for today.

Spring 2016
Broadside Press was the first important publisher of the work of Black American poets. Librarian and poet Dudley Randall launched the venture in 1965. He did the editing work out of his Detroit home, at first employing the broadside format that gave the press its name. Broadsides are single sheets bearing print. For centuries this ephemeral form has allowed individuals and groups to engage in public debate through the spread of ideas and information. Following in this tradition, the broadside poems that first emerged from Randall’s press addressed issues that were important to many Americans during the nineteen sixties. “Ballad of Birmingham” was the first broadside issued by the press. It was Randall’s own poem, evoking the 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed four Black girls.

Spring 2015
While she may be unknown to some, poet, novelist and teacher Margaret Walker (1915-1998) made an outsized impact on American literature. During a period when segregation and discrimination were legal in the American South, Walker wrote poems demanding civil rights and celebrating the language and culture, struggles and triumphs of African Americans.

Spring 2013
The items on display highlight the activities of Littleton “Lit” Mitchell as a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, his three-decades-long leadership of the Delaware NAACP, his career as a teacher and counselor at Governor Bacon Health Center in Delaware City, and his involvement in several other local and national organizations. Also displayed are items representing the career of Lit’s wife, Jane Mitchell, one of Delaware’s first African-American nurses and former director of nursing at the Delaware State Hospital.

Spring 2012
This exhibition celebrates the life and career of prominent African American author, critic, and educator J. Saunders Redding.

Fall 2007
Ishmael Reed: An Exhibition celebrates the literary career of the distinguished American author Ishmael Reed. The University of Delaware Library is the official repository for the papers of Ishmael Reed and the exhibit includes books, original manuscripts, photographs, artwork, and other materials drawn from the extensive collection of the author’s books and literary papers in Special Collections.

Spring 1998
This exhibition consisted of two separate installments. The first exhibit featured African American poetry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Well-known authors such as Phillis Wheatley and Paul Laurence Dunbar were included, but the work of lesser-known figures, such as Jupiter Hammon, George Moses Horton, and Frances E.W. Harper were also presented. The second display focused on African American poetry during the twentieth century and included work by Countee Cullen, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Sterling Brown, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Audrey Lorde, Maya Angelou, Wanda Coleman, Rita Dove, and a host of other African American poets.