In observance of February as Black History Month, the Source undertook a survey of scores of web sites found by searches on that subject. What follows are highlights, with links, of what we found to be the most extensive, informative, interesting and/or attractive sites.
Most of those cited here are aimed at a general adult audience, although some target young people and several are intended mainly for teachers in search of classroom materials and study guides. Unless noted otherwise, those visiting the sites can access and/or download the information on the spot at no cost.
Newer, our survey found, is not necessarily better. Some of the most attractive and extensive web sites we came upon were created two or more years ago. But since the topic is history, that's not a deterrent to currency.
The Pacific Bell Education First site, created five years ago and last updated in July 2000, is intended "to integrate the World Wide Web and videoconferencing into classroom learning." (Pacific Bell would be a teleconference hookup provider, of course.) Each of several sub-sites makes numerous optional links available to the browser. One of these sites, "Black History Hotlist: a Collection of Internet Sites," www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/BHM/bh_hotlist.html is accurately described as "a starting point for anyone studying African-American events and issues." It carries this sage bit of advice: "Remember to read critically and look for hidden agendas, bias, or errors that might creep into the Web pages."
The "Hotlist" provides web links to historic, academic, journalistic and other writings in areas of background to Black History Month, Slavery and African-American History, African-American / Buffalo Soldiers, the Civil Rights Movement, the Million-Man March, a poetry section and profiles and writings of dozens and dozens of African-American leaders, from Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois to Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey.
One link from this site is to the Christian Science Monitor newspaper's "Black History Project," at www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/specials/bhmonth/bhindex.shtml. The Monitor, for generations regarded as one of the most objective, incisive newspapers in America, offers its own multiplicity of historic and contemporary sources, including newspaper accounts, games, interviews and event listings. Its introduction states that, "combining original material with the Monitor's archive, with the latest technology, this site aims to educate, entertain, inform, and elevate thought."
Another telephone corporate site, that of AT&T, features separate black history quizzes covering civil rights, the arts and education for each week in February on its site at www.att.com/black_history_month/quiz/week1/dyk_quiz_week1.html . The answers are given on the spot, and it's a good thing, as many of these are not "everybody knows" questions.
At afroamculture.miningco.com/culture/afroamculture/cs/blackhistory/index.htm is the Black History section of the About.com Guide e-magazine on black life, lifestyles and issues (replete with advertising). There are more than 40, mostly broad-interest, links. Two not often cited elsewhere:
First, "African-American History, U.S. Department of State," at http://afroamculture.about.com/culture/afroamculture/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http:%2F%2Fusinfo.state.gov%2Fusa%2Fblackhis%2F. This is the State Department's Office of International Information Gateway to African-American History, "which has been established to assist its international audience in acquiring information on the rich and varied contributions of African-Americans to the culture and history of the United States and the world." That translates in some tongues to "propaganda," which is not necessarily a bad thing. It's got links to several strong non-government sites (with the disclaimer that such links "should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein"), publications, bibliographies and articles.
Second, "African-American Resources at the Smithsonian," for which the link given is outdated; the correct one is www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmah/afroam.htm, and it, too, is full of further subtopical references, including reading lists and images from a collection of works by black photographers, www.si.edu/anacostia/reflections_in_black2.htm.
A site linked repeatedly throughout black history web sites is to "African-American Mosaic," a Library of Congress resource guide to the institution's African-American collections, at lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/african/intro.html. Among its features is an encapsulated history of the impact on Liberia of black emigration from the United States to that West African nation.
Among the numerous sites providing accounts of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which the U.S. government used blacks unknowingly as guinea pigs for 40 years, one that is dispassionate and interestingly illustrated is www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtuskegee1.html. It has multiple cross links as well. The parent page of this site, www.infoplease.com/spot/bhm1.html, also has lots of offerings in sports and the arts, as well as crossword puzzles and quizzes broken down by subcategories (Motown music lovers, there's a crossword just for you!).
The be-all of sites has to be blackhistory.eb.com/, that of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It offers a historic timeline spanning from 1517 – when Spaniards first imported African slaves to work on plantations, replacing Amerindians who died from harsh working conditions and exposure to disease – to the present. (Which landed first in the English colonies – the Pilgrims or enslaved Africans? You may be surprised.) The nearly 500 mini-biographies are heavy on sports and the arts but include many contemporary figures. There's an interlink page with some of the intellectually oriented sites mentioned elsewhere in this article and a number of others, as well as an awesome bibliography section – that unfortunately is laid out in all but unreadable paragraphs, rather than in lists.
The Gale Group, a publishing / archiving enterprise, also has a timeline within its African-American history site at www.galegroup.com/freresrc/blkhstry/time.htm. It consists of hundreds of factoids listed in chronological order from the 16th through 20th centuries. There's no continuity, but the information is fascinating, if not easy to commit to memory.
TheAfro-centrist site AFROAmeric@'s Black History Museum, at www.afroam.org/history/slavery/main.html, has numerous anecdotes under the subtopic of "Women Resisted," as well as a "Chronolo
gy of Revolts."
The Institute for Global Communications (IGC) web site at www.igc.org/igc/pn/hg/blkhis.html apparently hasn't been updated for two years, but it has a number of links to interesting pages, many of them with non-U.S. perspectives.
Among the sites aimed at teachers is www.socialstudies.com/c/@uUGVV6fxgDyVk/Pages/blackhistory.html, promoting available materials, teaching tools and techniques – sometimes to be ordered through the web site.
Another teacher resource site, Educational CyberPlayGround's www.cyberpg.com/culdesac/bhm/bhm.html, features "more than 50 pages of information you can print out" and even two Anansi e-stories that can be heard in either standard English or American Virgin Island Creole. But it's a subscription-only service.
Among the sites aimed as students, Worldbook Encyclopedia's www.worldbook.com/fun/aajourny/html/index.html has historical readings on From Africa to America, From Slavery to Freedom, The First Years of Freedom and The Modern Civil Rights Movement. The site provides information in bite-size bytes with interactive quizzes and, unfortunately, distracting mini-graphics (a pencil, a late-comer to a seated audience) in constant motion. Just for fun, go to www.worldbook.com/fun/aajourny/html/bh022.html to find a familiar name that you may not have known was a part of the history of black rebellion.
National Geographic Online, as visually stunning as its print progenitor, has an interactive 1999 site on The Underground Railroad, at www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/j1.html that's intended for kids and teachers but is hard to resist even if you're neither one.
For those who genuinely love to read essays, The Atlantic Monthly offers a treasure trove of its own reprints at www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/black/blahisin.htm. The offerings, "some of the seminal essays by African-Americans that have appeared in The Atlantic," date from Frederick Douglass on "Reconstruction" in 1866 and include Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Another monthly, The Nation, has a similar site, past.thenation.com/historic/bhm2001/. Its own reprints are of essays dating from 1866, including pieces by Langston Hughes. W.E.B. DuBois, James Baldwin and Alice Walker.
Most of these web pages have multiple links to other, related sites, and you'll find a lot more there that's not even touched upon here. And if February runs out while you're still immersed in online pursuit of the past, that's no problem. The whole idea is to learn about, and learn from, African-American history – and all history – year-round.
