Islam in the African-American Experience

Databases are searchable electronic indexes of information. In this case, the databases below will help you locate primary sources (newspapers, images etc.) and secondary sources (including journal articles and other scholarly writings) on your course topic. To Access the databases below, click the links, login to your library account with your net id and begin searching. Consider keywords that you might use and/or making use of filters (left panel of library catalog) that help narrow your search for the information you wish to find.

Keywords to Consider when searching: 

• African American -- Islam
• Black Muslims
• African-American Religion
• Islam
• Faith 
• Black Theology 
• Black Muslim Women
• African American Women-- Religion

Not all databases have all the articles they cite available in full text. If you find an article in a Rutgers database but do not see the full text version, Use the   button that's in the database article record to have the system search Rutgers subscriptions for the full-text article.

All of the Rutgers databases can be found and searched by visiting the:

 A-Z list of Databases. 

African American Communities:  primary source material related to African American community life from the mid-19th century through the late 20th century. Material types include oral histories (including audio and video files), correspondence, leaflets and pamphlets, magazines (Ebony, Crisis, Messenger etc.) and periodicals, legal documents and official records, photographs, maps, ephemera, and images of objects. Themes include desegregation, urban renewal and housing problems, civil rights activities and protests, race relations and community integration, and African American culture. Archival materials from the following institutions: Atlanta History Center, Richard J. Daley Library, University of Illinois at Chicago, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Newberry Library, Weeksville Heritage Center

Black Thought and Culture:  full text of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writing by leading figures in African American life and culture, including Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Wells, A. Phillip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson and hundreds of others. One of the collection’s major features is the complete run of the Black Panther newspaper, 1966- 1980. Another highlight is a wide selection of abolitionists' writings from the nineteenth century. Certain documents go as far back as the early eighteenth century. Types of material include articles and essays, monographs, speeches, interviews, pamphlets, and correspondence. Approximately twenty percent is previously unpublished, including transcripts from the Columbia University Oral History Project.

Archives Unbound: Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984: collection of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation)'s previously classified files on prominent African Americans and African-American organizations. The files include a variety of materials, such as newspaper clippings, transcripts of public meetings and speeches, reports on private meetings infiltrated by the FBI, and reports of special agents, which sometimes refer to information provided by confidential informants.Subjects of the investigations include Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, Reverend Jesse Jackson, W.E.B. Du Bois, the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, the Highlander Folk School, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and KKK.

Proquest Historical Newspapers

Search across the ProQuest historical newspapers that the Libraries subscribe to: the Chicago Defender (1910-1975), the New York Times (1851- three years prior to the current year), the Philadelphia Inquirer (November 7, 1860 – December 31, 2001), the Pittsburgh Gazette (August 29, 1786 – December 31, 2003), the Wall Street Journal (1889-2010), the Washington Post(1877-2005); the Camden Courier Post (1950- ) and the New Jersey Collection (1876- )

A.M.: American Muslim Journal: African American Muslim news published in Chicago Ill. Established 1982

History Commons (African American Newspapers)

History Commons is a platform for discovering digitized historical and cultural materials. Rutgers University Libraries' modules on this platform primarily consist of materials from the United States in the 18th - early 20th centuries, including:

• African American Newspapers in the South: Newspapers originally published by and for African Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the Southern United States.
• African American Newspapers, Parts I-XII, Part XII Supplement: Newspapers originally published by and for African Americans throughout the 19th century. 
• American County Histories: New Jersey: 19th century books on New Jersey county history, many of which include biographical and genealogical information. 
• Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue: Marriages, deaths and obituaries from The Village Record, published in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
• Pennsylvania Newspaper Record: Newspapers dating from 1819-1870 from Delaware County, Pennsylvania. 
• The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1815: Complete publication history of the major Early American newspaper, founded by Benjamin Franklin.
• The Woman’s Tribune, 1883-1909: Complete publication history of the women’s suffrage newspaper, founded by Clara Bewick Colby.

Chicago Defender: This collection contains every issue of the newspaper The Chicago Defender published between 1910 to 1975, including all articles, illustrations, and advertisements. Each issue has been fully digitized and indexed. With the majority of its readership outside the Chicago region, the Chicago Defender served as the de facto national black newspaper in the U.S., and it was the most influential African-American newspaper of the 20th century. For content beginning with January 3, 1989 and full text content beginning with November 22, 1999, please use Ethnic NewsWatch.

Ethnic News Watch: a collection of newspapers, magazines, and journals published by ethnic, minority, and native presses, including African, African American, Arab American, Asian American, Caribbean, Eastern European, Hispanic, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Native American, and Pacific Islander presses. The historical file, Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, is more limited in scope; it includes publications of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American presses.
Ethnic NewsWatch—1990 - present.
Ethnic NewsWatch: A History—1959 - 1989.

The New York Times (historical): Allows you to search and display the full image of articles published in the New York Times back to 1851.

Start your search in Quick Search, Rutgers Libraries' new Google-like search engine that provides fast, relevancy-ranked results through a single search box. At Rutgers, quick search searches all the libraries electronic and physical catalogue and many of our databases

•  Journal of Africana Religions: publishes critical scholarship on Africana religions, including the religious traditions of African and African diasporia. Published by the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora.  University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Established in 2012.
• Black Theology: An International Journal provides a forum for the articulation and expression of issues of faith among Black people across the world. London ; Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
• Journal of Black Studies:  leading source for dynamic, innovative, and creative approach on the Black experience, since 1970, published eight times per year.
• Journal of African Religions: The Journal of Religion in Africa is a quarterly academic journal established in 1967 by Andrew Walls. It focuses on all religious traditions in Africa. Publisher: Brill Publishers
• The Journal of Religion in Africa: is a quarterly academic journal established in 1967 by Andrew Walls. It focuses on all religious traditions in Africa and is published by  Brill Publishers
• Islamic Studies: Islamic Studies is an internationally peer reviewed research journal, published by Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan, since 1962. 
• American Religion: Published semiannually, American Religion offers a forum for intellectual and creative engagement with religion in the Americas.
• American Journal of Islam & Society: bi-annual, double blind peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal, published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), established in 1984
• Comparative Islamic Studies: London: Equinox, 2005.
• Global Black Thought, the official journal of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS),
• The Muslim World: founded in 1911, is an Islamic studies journal dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of scholarly research on Islam and Muslim societies and on historical and current aspects of Muslim-Christian relations.