Professional Associations

African Studies Association
The African Studies Association is an association that was founded in 1957 as a non-profit organization open to all individuals and institutions interested in African affairs.

Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Established in 1915 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the mission of ASALH is to promote, research, preserve, interpret, and disseminate information about Black life, history, and culture to the global community.

Association for the study of the Worldwide African Diaspora
ASWAD is an organization of international scholars who seek to further the understanding of the dispersal of people of African decent throught the world.

Caribbean Studies Association An independent professional organization devoted to the promotion of Caribbean studies from a multidisciplinary, multicultural point of view.

Latin American Studies Association
The mission of the LASA is to foster intellectual discussion, research, and teaching on Latin America, the Caribbean, and its people throughout the Americas, promote the interests of its diverse membership, and encourage civic engagement through network building and public debate.

National Center for Black Studies
The National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) was established in 1975 by African American scholars who recognized the need to formalize the study of the African World experience, as well as expand and strengthen academic units and community programs devoted to this endeavor.

Collections

Smithsonian Institute
"I then bequeath the whole of my property...to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge..." -James Smithson (1765-1829)

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
The King Institute at Stanford University seeks to ensure that King's ideas and ideals will benefit future generations. The Institute's endowment supports research and educational programs that contribute to public understanding of King's life and of the movements inspired by his message of peace with social justice.

W. E. B. Du Bois Institute 
The Du Bois Institute is one of the nation's oldest research centers dedicated to the study of the history, culture, and social institutions of Africans and African Americans.

COLLECTIONS

African American Museum of Philadelphia
Founded in 1976 in celebration of the nation's Bicentennial, the African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) was established to preserve, interpret and exhibit the heritage of African Americans. Throughout its evolution, the museum has objectively interpreted and presented the achievements and aspirations of African Americans from pre-colonial times to the current day.

Amistad Research Center
The Amistad Research Center, at Tulane University, is dedicated to preserving America's ethnic heritage by providing a home to the manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, books, periodicals and works of art that contain the history of peoples, of nations, of beliefs and dreams, of a past worth sharing with the future.

Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection
The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection is a research facility for the study of the history and culture of people of African descent. The core collection was donated to Temple University in 1983 by Charles L. Blockson, a Pennsylvania bibliophile and collector of Afro-Americana. The facility provides materials, expository programs and service for Black Studies research scholars. The collection is used by a wide spectrum of researchers ranging from high school students to well-established scholars.

John Hope Franklin Collection for African and African American Documentation Founded in 1995, the John Hope Franklin Collection is a repository for African and African American studies documentation and an educational outreach division of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University.

Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) is a repository for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. As one of Howard University's major research facilities, the MSRC collects, preserves, and makes available for research a wide range of resources chronicling the Black experience.

Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection The Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection represents much of King's life and work spanning from 1944 to 1968. Encompassing approximately 10,000 items, the collection allows insight into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s thoughts, personality, ministerial preparation, organizational skills and strategic planning during the Civil Rights period.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a national research library devoted to collecting,
preserving and providing access to resources documenting the history and experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world.