African Studies: Recommended Websites

Organization based in London, UK, that promotes Africa's creative expression and cultural diversity outside of the continent.

ADIFF’s mission is to present African diaspora-related films to diverse audiences, redesign the Black cinema experience, and strengthen the role of African and African descent directors in contemporary world cinema.

In recent times, the growing economic relationship between India and African countries has been the subject of academic research and newspaper articles. Yet, as this collection of images courtesy of the New York Public Library shows, the relationship between these two entities has existed for centuries. Read more articles in the “Why India-Africa relations matter” blog series.

Think tank located in The Hague, Netherlands and dedicated to mobilizing African Diaspora in Europe for the development of Africa.

Located in Boston, Massachusetts and dedicated to preserving, conserving and accurately interpreting the contributions of African Americans in New England from the colonial period through the 19th century.

Located in San Francisco, MoAD invites everyone to engage in the cultural expression of the African Diaspora through contemporary art.

The Archives holds a wealth of material documenting the African American experience, and highlights these resources online, in programs, and through traditional and social media.

This digital compilation was developed in support of the NYPL website, "The African American Migration Experience," a sweeping 500-year historical narrative from the transatlantic slave trade to the Western migration, the colonization movement, the Great Migration, and the contemporary immigration of people from the Caribbean, Haiti, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Part of University of Florida Digital Collections. Collection of art works and artifacts from the African continent, and, mostly from private collections. This collection provides access to high resolution images while simulating museum viewing by allowing each object to be seen in the round (360 degrees).
Part of University of Florida Digital Collections. Collection of art works and artifacts from the African continent, and, mostly from private collections. This collection provides access to high resolution images while simulating museum viewing by allowing each object to be seen in the round (360 degrees).

Based at the Universities of Oxford, Leicester and Durham, the EAMENA Database brings together data from satellite imagery and published reports to make available information about archaeological sites and landscapes which are under threat.

Includes essays on African influences in modern art, West African photography, modern Egyptian art, and more.

A number of rare masterpieces from the court of the Benin kingdom, including fifteen bronze plaques.

Approximately 5000 pictures of African art published before 1921.

African art museum in Washington, D.C. dedicated to inspiring conversations about the beauty, power, and diversity of African arts and cultures worldwide.

The African art collection comprises nearly 2,000 objects, representing 3,000 years of African history, with masks, figures, utilitarian objects, jewelry, ceramics, and textiles from throughout the continent. Highlights include ritual figures and masks from West and Central Africa, and terracotta antiquities from the Sahel area.

Collects, preserves, researches, and exhibits twenty-first century art from Africa and its Diaspora.

Records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s.

A portal to multimedia collections about Africa.

Holds 40 years of material from all the editions of Drum Magazine and it's various sister publications - Golden City Post, Trust, True Love and City Press. Contains a wealth of information from politics to culture and complexities of the vast Anglophone African nations.

Information on UNESCO cultural and natural world heritage sites for 35 countries in Africa.

Significant primary source materials including more than 16,000 items from 193 countries between 8000 BCE and 2000.

Contains 49 video interviews conducted with personnel from the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Collected in 2008, these interviews reveal the challenges of striving for justice and reconciliation after genocide.

A non-partisan people's history project concerned with the presentation of a critical, open access, and democratic history of South Africa.

Presents first-hand accounts of this important political movement; includes interviews with South African activists, raw video footage documenting mass resistance and police repression, historical documents, rare photographs, and original narratives.

Offers free digital access to knowledge about all regions of Sudan; an expanding, word-searchable, full-text database of historical and contemporary books and documents.

About 1000 photographs online available to the public via Wikimedia Commons (mainly on Sierra Leone in the 1930s and Senegal and Guinea-Bissau in the early 1970s).

Provides annotations and scholarly reviews of children's and young adult books that focus on Africa.

Annual literature prize awarded to an African writer of a short story published in English.

In this TED Talk, novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Authoritative resource on over 7,000 living world languages.

Part of University of Florida Digital Collections. Includes maps of the African continent, as well as island territories in both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

Digitized historical maps of Africa from the non-profit Afriterra Foundation.

Antiquarian maps of Africa from the collections of the late Dr. Oscar I. Norwich and the Stanford University Libraries.

From the University of Texas; includes political, reference, and relief maps.

Home of African hip hop culture on the web since 1997, with the goal of unifying everybody who’s inspired by hip hop and by the cultures of Africa and of African origins.

Music from Africa and the Diaspora. Includes listings by artist and country.

Peabody award-winning radio program and online magazine dedicated to music from Africa and the African diaspora.

Over 8,000 audio recordings in 14 distinct collections, including Decca West African recordings, Syliphone record label recordings from Guinea, Dinka songs from South Sudan, and music from Senegal, Botswana, Uganda, Ghana, and South Africa.

Multi-media reference archive and resource center for traditional and popular song, music, and dance of Africa and the Americas.

Research institution devoted to the study of music and oral arts in Africa. Preserves thousands of historical recordings going back to 1929 and supports contemporary fieldwork

Research repository and an expert analysis hub on African affairs.

Aggregates, produces, and distributes 900 news and information items daily from over 150 African news organizations and its own reporters to an African and global public.

Includes news, country profiles, video and podcasts.

Includes news, video and photographs.

Border-less, largely volunteer community of more than 1400 writers, analysts, online media experts, and translators. Since 2005, this website has been curating, verifying, and translating trending news and stories you might be missing on the Internet, from blogs, independent press and social media in 167 countries.

News and audio clips.

A collection of TED Talks on the topic of Africa.

Independent non-governmental pan-African organisation, established in The Gambia since 1989. Plays a central role in promoting and protecting human rights and democracy in Africa.

Centralized source for scholars, practitioners and laypersons working in or on the Continent and a reference to the work of these courts and tribunals for others studying the global phenomenon.

Both an academic department and a non-governmental organisation, and works towards human rights education in Africa, a greater awareness of human rights, the wide dissemination of publications on human rights in Africa, and the improvement of the rights of women, people living with HIV, indigenous peoples, sexual minorities and other disadvantaged or marginalised persons or groups across the continent.