With the advent of sound recording in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, African Americans could tell their own stories in their own voices. 

American Slave Narratives:  An Online Anthology -- Part of the American Studies Hypertexts Project at the University of Virginia, this site features extensive narratives by former slaves and an audio file of an interview with Fountain Hughes, an ex-slave born in 1848 who spoke in 1949 about his experiences.

Documenting the American South -- A project of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this site makes all of the known existing narratives of former slaves available online.

Born in Slavery and Voices from the Days of Slavery -- Collections assembled by the Library of Congress for its project on American Memory.  The sites feature interviews with former slaves and recordings of slave songs.

Getting Word:  The Monticello African American Oral History Project -- Part of the online resources for the home of America's third president, Thomas Jefferson, this site includes a gallery of photographs of African Americans who worked at Monticello and information about families that can be traced to Monticello slaves.

Lest we Forget:  The Triumph over Slavery -- This section of the New York Public Library web site features the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which includes a link to a UNESCO project on the impact of world slavery.

The Valley of the Shadow -- Developed by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at the University of Virginia, this site compiles extensive resources on the history of two counties in different states (Virginia and Pennsylvania) before, during, and after the American Civil War.  The site includes original letters and diaries.

Virginia Black History Archives  |  Special Collections and Archives

VCU Libraries Online Exhibits

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