Black Abolitionist Archives

Director: Roy E. Finkenbine
Location: Briggs 318, McNichols Campus
Telephone: (313) 993-1016
E-mail: finkenre@udmercy.edu

The Black Abolitionist Archives is an historical research center devoted to the study of African Americans involved in the transatlantic struggle against slavery – America’s “first civil rights movement.” The collection housed in the archives contains a wealth of materials that document the lives of some 300 black abolitionists, including some 14,000 documents, an extensive microfilm library, a clippings file, and a library of scholarly books, articles and dissertations. Dr. James O. Horton of the Smithsonian Institution’s Afro-American Communities Project has called it “the most extensive primary source collection on antebellum black activism.”