African American Studies in Library Special Collections
Library Special Collections holdings on African Americans include significant collections which reveal the influence of individuals, organizations and institutions and their role in the development of Los Angeles.
Keyword search for primary source materials in UCLA's online finding aids:
Arts, Culture and Recreation
African American Artists of Los Angeles Oral History Series documents significant artists and others in the Los Angeles metropolitan area who have worked to expand exhibition opportunities and pubic support for African American visual culture.
African American Architects of Los Angeles Oral History Series focuses on selected architects who enhanced the built environment, principally of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Included in several of the interviews is discussion of the influence of pioneering African American architect Paul R. Williams.
Central Avenue Sounds Oral History Series preserves the spoken memories of individuals mainly musicians who were raised near and/or performed on Los Angeles's Central Avenue from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s
Jenkins (Billie) Papers, 1969-2006 pioneer and advocate for professional working women and African Americans in the entertainment industry
George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection consists of newspaper clippings, photographs, publicity material, posters, correspondence, and business records related to the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, other early Black film companies, Black-cast films, Black musicians, sports figures and entertainers. Emblematic of the gems in the collection are rare copies of Black newspapers and magazines dating back to the early years of the twentieth century.
Howard Morehead Archive, 1945-2003 work of noted photographer (Jet, Ebony, Los Angeles Sentinel) and includes photographs of local Los Angeles venues, Central Avenue jazz musicians and other entertainers.
Horace Tapscott Jazz Collection, 1960-2002 sound recordings, musical compositions and arrangements of this Central Avenue jazz musicians as well as the performances of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension.
L.A. Rebellion the work of a group of African and African American students who entered the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, as part of a “Ethno-Communications” initiative designed to be responsive to communities of color (also including Asian, Chicano and Native American communities).