HistoryMakers Digital Archive

HistoryMakers Digital Archive is an extensive online database of over 10,000 hours of full-text and video interviews with African-Americans distinguished in the fields of science, culture, politics, the arts, and public life.

The HistoryMakers, established in 1999, is a non-profit institution whose purpose is to record, preserve and disseminate the content of video oral history interviews highlighting the accomplishments of individual African Americans and African-American-led groups and movements. Its aim is to provide a unique scholarly and educational resource for exploring African American history and culture. It is unique among collections of African American heritage because of its large and varied scope, with interviewees from across the United States, from a variety of fields, and with memories stretching from the 1890s to the present. The interviews are life oral histories covering the person’s entire span of memories as well as his or her own family’s oral history.

Interviews were first conducted in 1993, and continue to the present. The archive continues to grow, so that queries saved today may have new results tomorrow based on new interviews added into the archive. Some people in the collection may be interviewed again, so that content for a particular person may grow as well.

Note: HistoryMakers Digital Archive is not compatible with Internet Explorer (IE).