Black Women Radicals Database
The Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) historizes and visualizes Black women’s radical political activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora in efforts to build academic, political, and community engagement, dialogue, knowledge production, research, and education about Black women’s significant legacies as socio-political agents of radical change. By housing a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders, the BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organizing, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora that has often been ignored in favor of Black and white cis-heteronormative male charismatic leadership, especially in the field of Black Politics. BWRD serves as a vehicle to center Black women’s historical political memory, scholarship, epistemologies, and leadership in socio-political movements that may not be taught in academia and in community and public spaces. The Database is free for educational use.*
*The BWRD is a continuing project and the current profiles of the activists and leaders in the Database are not completed and are constantly being updated. Moreover, the BWRD will continue to add profiles of historical Black women activists and leaders in Africa and in the African Diaspora. The Black Women Radicals team will be calling for writers who are interested in contributing to the BWRD soon. For questions about the Database and/or if you are interested in contributing to the BWRD, please contact blackwomenradicals@gmail.com.
Further relevant guides
Subject-specific Resources
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Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 This link opens in a new windowPresents important aspects of LGBTQ life in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Covers experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole, but of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations that constitute this community.
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Gender, Feminism and the British Left, 1944-1991 This link opens in a new windowRecords of the Communist Party of Great Britain's Womens' Department, the archive shows how certain segments of the CPGB came to embrace some of the concerns of the women's liberation movement, highlighting communist involvement in campaigns related to abortion law, employment rights, and the whole gamut of feminist politics
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History of Feminism This link opens in a new windowAccess to a collection of primary and secondary source material on the history of feminism in the 19th century, from 1776 to 1928.
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Independent Voices This link opens in a new windowA digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals from the special collections of academic institutions. Materials produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
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LGBT Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowContains 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests, including the Advocate and Gay Times
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LGBT Thought and Culture This link opens in a new windowContains an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
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Mass Observation Project This link opens in a new windowThe Mass Observation Project was launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation. Its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK.
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Race Relations in America This link opens in a new windowDocumenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Race Relations Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
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South Asia Archive This link opens in a new windowThe South Asia Archive provides an extensive resource for students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences.
Focusing on South Asia, the Archive contains both serial and non-serial materials, including reports, rare books, and journal runs from noteworthy, rare publications. -
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowContains archives of the foremost titles of consumer magazines aimed at a female readership, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. In combination, the publications cover topics such as family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, and culture.
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Women's Studies Archive: Women's Issues and Identities This link opens in a new windowAccess to perspectives on women's experiences from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Historical records from Europe, North and South America, Africa, India, East Asia, and the Pacific Rim with content in English, French, German, and Dutch.
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Women and Social Movements, International This link opens in a new windowWomen and Social Movements, International is a landmark collection of primary materials. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
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Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820 This link opens in a new windowWomen and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices.
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Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new windowDocuments women's activism in public life by bringing together books, images, pamphlets, advice literature, training guides, documents (including primary documents), scholarly essays, commentaries, bibliographies, links to other websites, and other ephemera.
The Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) historises and visualizes Black women’s radical political activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora in efforts to build academic, political, and community engagement, dialogue, knowledge production, research, and education about Black women’s significant legacies as socio-political agents of radical change. By housing a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders, the BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organizing, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora that has often been ignored in favour of Black and white cis-heteronormative male charismatic leadership, especially in the field of Black Politics. BWRD serves as a vehicle to centre Black women’s historical political memory, scholarship, epistemologies, and leadership in socio-political movements that may not be taught in academia and in community and public spaces. The Database is free for educational use.*
*The BWRD is a continuing project and the current profiles of the activists and leaders in the Database are not completed and are constantly being updated. Moreover, the BWRD will continue to add profiles of historical Black women activists and leaders in Africa and in the African Diaspora. The Black Women Radicals team will be calling for writers who are interested in contributing to the BWRD soon. For questions about the Database and/or if you are interested in contributing to the BWRD, please contact blackwomenradicals@gmail.com.
Multidisciplinary Academic Databases
The following databases contain a variety of material, including journal articles, for your specific subject area. The brief descriptions beneath the titles will explain what each hold. To access, click on the title.
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Alexander Street Press Video Collection This link opens in a new windowAccess to thousands of videos across a wide range of subject areas.
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ASSIA Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts This link opens in a new windowAn indexing and abstracting tool covering health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. Updated monthly, a comprehensive source of social science and health information for the practical and academic professional.
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British Humanities Index (BHI) This link opens in a new windowNow known as Humanities Index.
An international abstracting and indexing tool for research in the humanities, BHI indexes over 400 internationally respected humanities journals and weekly magazines published in the UK and other English speaking countries, as well as quality newspapers published in the UK. -
Duke University Press Journals Online This link opens in a new windowOver thirty periodicals that span a range of disciplines within the humanities and sciences—from East Asian cultural studies to French history, from lesbian and gay studies to mathematics and the history of economic thought, from feminism, culture and media studies to medieval and early modern studies.
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International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new windowAn online resource for social science and interdisciplinary research. Over 2.5 million bibliographic references to journal articles, books, reviews and selected chapters from 1951.
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JSTOR This link opens in a new windowProvides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines primarily in the humanities and social sciences. Also includes: 34,000 research reports from more than 140 policy institutes on climate change, cybersecurity, energy policy, international relations, terrorism, and various public health issues. Primary sources from important and rare collections from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies around the world including Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa and Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa. Thematic collections focusing on emerging areas of research includes Lives of Literature, Security Studies, and Sustainability.
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Kanopy (now via Library Search) This link opens in a new windowYou can now look for Kanopy films using Library Search. The benefit of this is that it will also search across our other film collections, to make sure that you don't miss out. Simply enter your search terms and select 'Video' from the drop down list at the end of the Library Search bar.
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Project Muse This link opens in a new windowHigh quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
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Scopus This link opens in a new windowAbstracts and citations for over 22,800 peer-reviewed titles from more than 5,000 international publishers in science, technology, medicine, social science, arts and humanities
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Web of Science This link opens in a new windowAccess to the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.