History of Africa and the African Diaspora

AODL is an open access digital library of African cultural heritage materials created by Michigan State University in collaboration with museums, archives, scholars, and communities around the world.

A digital repository for millions of books and periodicals in the public domain, this collection includes multiple texts about and from the African continent in multiple languages (e.g., Swahili, etc.).

Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Includes texts from around the world, including from across the African continent.

Search over 16 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than 5.1 million online images, audio & videos and blog posts.

The African Activist Archive is preserving and making available online the records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. The website includes:
---growing online archive of historical materials - pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, T-shirts, photographs, and audio and video recordings
---personal remembrances and interviews with activists
---an international directory of collections deposited in libraries and archives

Freely accessible educational resource that is the product of the collaborative efforts of more than fifty scholars, technicians, collectors and institutions around the world. Includes topical essays as well as thousands of digital facsimiles of ephemera, photographs, and more.

Includes over 7,000 images showing life in Africa between 1860 - 1960, including European colonization, development of railroads, and urbanization. Focused on East Africa.

Established in 2010, the James J. Ross Archive of African Images (RAAI) contains approximately 5000 images of figurative African art published before 1921. RAAI is the result of an eight-year collaboration between James J. Ross and Susan Vogel, the project's co-directors. The Archive aspires to include all figurative African objects in books, periodicals, catalogues, and other publications appearing prior to 1921 - the oldest dates to 1591.

Includes select digitization of material objects and art brought by white British sailors and businessmen from West Africa to England during the 19th and 20th centuries. The curated collection includes some beautiful pieces from what is now Nigeria, Ghana, and other locations. Collections good for browsing not searching.

The Kenya Open Data is a portal that makes public Government datasets accessible for free to the public in easy reusable formats. Strongest 1990 to the present.

The World Bank Group's (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD) open access documents and reports cover the 1920s to the present with a focus on Subsaharan African development.

Collection of international statistics from the World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI) and Global Development Finance (GDF) , International Monetary Fund (IMF) , UNESCO and other organizations. A total of 438 series and 274 countries.

Interface and content in English (and other languages).
Access to AI's more recent country and research reports beginning in 1961 and moving to the present.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English (and other languages).
HRW's reports from 1987 forward. Can search by country, year, keyword, and topic.
Open Access.

Includes key OECD publications such as: Financial Market Trends, Higher Education Management and Policy, Nuclear Law Bulletin, OECD Economic Outlook, OECD Economic Studies, OECD Economic Surveys, OECD Journal of Competition Law & Policy, and OECD Papers. Cover from 1990s onward.

ODS is the UN's Official Document System. You can search for UN documents by keywords, then narrow your search.

Historical documents groped by century, major collection, subject, author and title. Out of Yale Law School.

Hein Online collection of country constitutions, constitutional hierarchies , and texts and journals on consitutional law.

A layered, interactive map of the African continent with multiple associated datasets and historic maps from the 17th century to the present.

The Afriterra Library embraces a non-profit mission to access, preserve, and apply the cartographic record of Africa, enabling broader interpretation and transformative education. Covers over 500 years in 8 languages with over 3000 creators.

Thousands of maps from the 12th to the 21st centuries. Heavy emphasis on Europe but includes excellent global coverage (including 3d globes).

More than 37,000 maps available through the US Library of Congress with collection focus between 1600 and the present.

Antiquarian maps of Africa and its islands, 1486 – ca. 1900.

Explore a Google Map interface, limiting by date ranges, and then link out to appropriate digitized historical maps from the various partner collections (including the British Library, the New York Public Library, and others).

Currently under construction

Includes more than 500 publications from across Africa, some dating back to the 1980s.

"Assembled by the British collector Humphrey Winterton over about 30 years, the collection depicts the breadth of African experience; documents African life; European life in Africa in all its manifestations; and the African landscape, in particular as it changed over time. Included are photographs showing the building of East Africa’s railways, the growth of its urban centers and the development of European colonial administration ... from 1860 - 1960."
Open Access.

AAU-IR is a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes digital material. The Repository is important tool for preserving the AAU 's legacy; It facilitates digital preservation and scholarly communication. Focussed 1990s to the present.

This collection includes more than 600 manuscripts, the majority in Geez and Arabic, from the entire scope of Ethiopia's extant manuscript history (ca. 600 years).

More than 300 images (photographs, illustrations, and maps) as well as travel accounts and manuscripts part of the New York Public Library's Digital Collections. Collection focused on the 19th and 20th centuries, some earlier material.

Run by The National Council for Law Reporting, this site provide access points to multiple levels of law related to Kenya during the colonial period in the 19th century through the present.

The Kenya Gazette is an official publication of the government of the Republic of Kenya. It contains notices of new legislation, notices required to be published by law or policy as well as other announcements that are published for general public information. It is published every week, usually on Friday, with occasional releases of special or supplementary editions within the week. Covers 1895 to 2010s in Google Books. More recent issues available through Kenya Law.

The Kenya Open Data is a portal that makes public Government datasets accessible for free to the public in easy reusable formats. Strongest 1990 to the present.

This project will salvage the manuscript collection held at the Riyadha mosque in Lamu, Kenya. The Riyadha mosque college was founded in the late 19th century and is one of the oldest continuously functioning Islamic teaching institutions in East Africa.

The 1960s-80s is considered the ‘golden age’ of African music, and in East Africa, Tanzania was famed for having one of the most active and vibrant music scenes of them all. Not only was the music catchy, warm, and bright, it was a used consciously as a powerful tool for building national unity, pride, and pan-African solidarity after years of colonialism.

The digital collection is comprised of 4,471 images focused on Eridadi Medadi Kasirye Mulira (1909–1995), who was B/Uganda’s foremost Protestant constitutional thinker in the second half of the twentieth century.

The collection of Ham Mukasa's (1868-1956) documents includes over 2000 photographs and several thousand pages of related personal notes, letters and diaries, half of which are available online.

The Sir Albert Cook Library comprises Sir Albert Cook’s original handwritten patient records dating back to 1897 to 1944.

Collection of photographic images from the Ham Mukasa archive held by Eve Mulira, mostly from 1890-1956. Collection focuses heavily on group and individual portraits.