Researching African American Photographers

Santa Clara University: University Library

Library of Congress: Archive of Shawn Walker

Swann Auction Galleries: Collecting Works by African American Photographers

Temple University Libraries: John W. Mosley Photographs

Texas African American Photography Archives

UC Santa Barbara: Resources on African American Studies

Xavier University of Louisiana Library: Arthur P. Bedou Photographs Collection

The Amistad Research Center has over 600 manuscript collections and 20,000 books dedicated to African American history. The center is located in Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.

The Society holds a valuable collection of Augustus Washington daguerreotypes.

The Historic New Orleans Collection contains a large Jazz collection and many African American photographs.

After reviewing the resources listed below, we made the decision to use the descriptive term African American because the collection is focused on American photographers. Researchers are encouraged to review the resources and make their own informed decision.

Antracoli, Alexis A., Annalise Berdini, Kelly Bolding, Faith Charlton, Amanda Ferrara, Valencia Johnson, and Katy Rawdon. “Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia: Anti-Racist Description Resources.” October 2020.

Archives for Black Lives (A4BLIP)

NABJ Style Guide A | National Association of Black Journalists

Say African American or Black, but first acknowledge the persistence of structural racism | Urban Institute

COMMENTARY: “Black” or “African American?” | Afro

The Changing Definition of African-American | History | Smithsonian Magazine

The LOC has thousands of photographs by African American photographers. Specific collections include 4,700 NAACP photographs from 1933-1955.

The Moorland Spingarn Research Center is devoted to African American culture and history and contains thousands of photographs.

NARA holds many photographs including the U.S. Signal Corps collection.

The National Museum of African American History (opening in 2015) has many collections related to African American photography such as the Ernest C. Withers collection. Ernest Withers (1922-2007) was an African American photographer who worked in Memphis, TN.

The Schomburg Center is a major research facility holding African American photographs, manuscripts, and culture collections. Many photographs are by African American artists. The Schomburg Center is located in New York, NY and is affiliated with the New York Public Library.

The Archives Center holds many photographs by and of African Americans, especially the archive of Addison Scurlock.

The Studio Musem holds the archive of James VanDerZee, an African American photographer known for his images of black New Yorkers during the Harlem Renaissance.

The University library holds the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters which includes many photographs.

Afro American: Coppin Dedicates Art Gallery in Memory of Former Photography Professor

Baltimore Magazine: Picture This: Grandson of Longtime Baltimore Afro-American Photographer Henry Phillips Preserves his one-of-a-kind Collection

The Baltimore Sun: Cary Beth Cryor, 49, photographer, teacher

The Baltimore Sun: For the Phillips Family, 70 years of Capturing Baltimore's African-American Experience

The Baltimore Sun: On the Front Lines: Baltimore Photographers Recall Documenting 1968 Riots

The Gordon Parks Foundation

The Washington Post : "In the 1960s, these African American photographers came together to fight underrepresentation in the art world"

VFMA: The Black Photographers Annual