Focus on
African Americans in Chicago
Bordered on one side by Lake Michigan and by the rest of the United States on all others, Chicago has long been a center of African American history, politics, and culture.
- Browse by category
DISPATCHES FROM
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
We find ourselves today in one of those moments—a new nadir in the line of progress—when scholars, activists, and educators need to regroup, refocus, and reenergize if their work is to "bend" what Dr. King famously invoked from the abolitionist Theodore Parker as the "arc of the moral universe."
| Lesson Plans | Country Profiles | Focus On |
|---|---|---|
| Use the Oxford African American Studies Center to bring online learning into the classroom. | Vital statistics and reference articles on countries that have been central to the history of Africans and African Americans. | Explore photo essays on important events, people, and themes in African American history. |
GUEST SCHOLAR
Franklin W. Knight
Franklin W. Knight introduces the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography.
What's New
- A dispatch from Editor in Chief Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
- New entries in the Dictionary of African Biography and the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography.
- A new article from the African American Studies Center on the State of Mississippi v. Willie McGee.
- A photo essay on African Americans in Chicago by Christopher R. Reed (Roosevelt College).
- Visit the What's New page for more details
- Sign up to automatically receive information about site updates!
Feature
- Biographies
- Sixty-five new biographies have been added to the African American National Biography, the Dictionary of African Biography, and the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography, including entries on Inez Andrews, Bootsy Collins, and Michael Vick.
- Community Spotlights
- New articles have been added to existing community spotlights on California, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
- Lesson Plans
-
Using Digital Sources to Teach about Enslavement and the Underground Railroad in Southwestern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southern Indiana
This lesson plan explores the legacy of the Underground Railroad in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio as well the effect it had on the nation at large.
- Teacher Resources
-
Building a Community of Scholars
Dr. Theresa Vara-Dannen discusses her work with high school students to create scholarly entries for the African American National Biography.
- Guide to Reference Works
-
This feature allows you to scroll through the tables of contents for each of the major reference works on the Oxford African American Studies Center, including the African American National Biography, Africana, Black Women in America, the Encyclopedia of African American History, as well as the newly added Dictionary of African Biography and the Encyclopedia of African Thought.
What's Inside
-
Over 10,000 articles from Oxford's authoritative reference program — with primary source documents, images, maps, chart and tables, and much more!
-
Search and Browse features allow you to focus and refine results by era and subject category.
-
Primary Source Documents, with specially written commentaries, take you through the personal and public histories of African Americans.
-
Charts and tables provide information on everything from demographics to government and politics to business and labor to education and the arts
