Prepare for a visit to AAMLO with these special topic resource guides.
This resource guide is intended to help users locate holdings at AAMLO related to Afro-Latinx/Afro-Caribbean heritage in California and celebrating the shared histories of African American and Latinx activism.
It highlights holdings in the following areas:
● Selected Library Material at AAMLO
● Selected Archival Collections at AAMLO
Other collections may contain relevant materials. Please contact AAMLO (aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org) with any questions or to schedule an appointment to view materials in person.
Selected Library Materials
Discovering Early California Afro-Latino Presence by Damany M. Fisher
Don Pio Pico's Historical Narrative by Pio Pico
Juana Briones of Nineteenth-century California by Jeanne Farr McDonnell
Notable Southern Californians in Black History by Robert Lee Johnson
Colonial Blackness: a History of Afro-Mexico by Herman L. Bennett
Recovering History, Constructing Race: the Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans by Martha Menchaca
Fernando Ortiz on Music: Selected Writing on Afro-Cuban Culture by Fernando Ortiz
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Oritz
Afro-Latin American Studies edited by Alejandro de la Fuente and George Reid Andrews
The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States edited by Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores
Civil Rights and Beyond: African American and Latino/a Activism in the Twentieth-Century United States edited by Brian D. Behnken
Viva La Raza: a History of Chicano Identity and Resistance edited by Yolanda Alaniz and Megan Cornish
Youth, Identity, Power: the Chicano Movement by Carlos Muñoz
Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles by Laura Pulido
Upsetting the Apple Cart: Black-Latino Coalitions in New York City from Protest to Public Office by Frederick Douglass Opie
Strictly Ghetto Property; the Story of Los Siete De La Raza by Marjorie Heins
Cartographic Memory: Social Movement Activism and the Production of Space by Juan Herrera
How the United States Racializes Latinos: White Hegemony and Its Consequences edited by José A. Cobas, Jorge Duany, and Joe R. Feagin
Campus Counterspaces: Black and Latinx Students' Search for Community at Historically White Universities by Micere Keels
The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes and Tara Betts
Selected Archival Collections
Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection. Includes various photographs related to Afro-Latinx people in Alta California and California's early African American communities. Some of the earliest photographs [reproductions] depict Luis Manuel Quintero (1725? – 1810), General Andres Pico (1810-1876), Juan Francisco Reyes (1749–1809), José Isidro (1813-1863), and the residences of the Jose Manuel Nieto (1734–1804) family and María Rita Valdez (1791-1828). Other photographs document the role people of African descent played in the founding of early California towns.
Black Panther Community News Service Collection. Issues of the Black Panther Black Community News Service and The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service promoted Black and Brown solidarity and support of César Chávez and the United Farm Workers (UFW). In addition to publishing many articles on the UFW and its boycotts, The Black Panther (BPP) newspapers frequently carried UFW fundraising coupons to send direct financial support. The BPP supported the Chicano Movement in many other ways, such as funding the publication of the newspaper Basta Ya!, and in defending political prisoners, including Los Siete (The Latino Seven).
Henry Williams Jr. Film Collection. The Henry Williams Jr. Film Collection consists of film and audiotape mostly documenting the Black Panther Party and student and union protest movements of the late 1960s. The films include footage shot by the documentary film collective California Newsreel of the Black Panther Party and its leaders in Oakland in the 1960s; footage taken by El Consejo Nacional de Huelga; an interview with members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); United Automobile Workers and Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union strikes; the Farah Manufacturing Company strike of 1972; and a 1970 anti-Vietnam march in Los Angeles organized by the National Chicano Moratorium Committee. [View online]
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection. Includes printed material and ephemera collected by the African American Museum & Library at Oakland. The East Bay Negro Historical Society began vertical files in the late 1960s, collecting ephemera and newspaper clippings about African American history and culture. Selected items include:
- Unpublished writing including "La academia de la nueva raza: su historia" (Tomas C. Atencio)
- Issues of Galeria de La Raza Studio and Semilla de Libertad Foundation newsletters
- United Farm Workers of America boycott grapes and Marche con Cesar Chavez y Dolores Huerta flyers and various form letters from Cesar Chavez
- Announcement for the California Afro American Museum exhibition Africa's legacy in Mexico (1993)
- Promotional material related to portraits of African Mexicans by Tony Gleaton
- and others
Ronald V. Dellums Congressional Papers. Congressmember and social justice leader Ronald V. Dellums (1935-2018) was a lifelong champion for human rights and self-determination in the countries of Central America and the Caribbean. Among the congressional papers are subject files related to:
- Self-determination for Puerto Rico and U.S. military exercises on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico
- Cuban embargos, U.S./Cuba medical projects, and Dellums' 1977 diplomatic visit to Cuba at the invitation of Fidel Castro
- Calls for change in U.S. policy towards Haiti and Haitian refugees
- Dellums' critiques of the U.S. invasion of Grenada and commitments to Grenada and Prime Minister Maurice Bishop
- Human rights abuses in El Salvador and issues of military assistance and economic aid to El Salvador
- Paramilitary operations in Nicaragua
- Notes from visits to Guatemala and Honduras
- Black Hispanic Caucus
- and others
Oakland Post Photograph Collection. Includes various photographs of Cesar Chavez with African American politicians, including Congressmember Ronald V. Dellums and Lionel Wilson. Also included are photographs of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) taken at a 1964 meeting.
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Oral History Collection. Includes an interview with Earl Martin Price discussing growing up in West Oakland, surfing as a child in Santa Monica, his parent's interracial marriage, his dad's membership in the Communist Party, his involvement in radical politics with Mark Comfort, and his visit to Cuba.
Ambrosia Wysinger Jones Papers. Ambrosia Wysinger Jones (1905-1999), together with husband Hillarie Jones, operated the first Black travel agency in Oakland, Charm Travel Agency, that catered to African Americans looking to vacation in Africa and the Caribbean. Included are photographs of Charm Travel Agency.
Benjamin V. Williams Papers. The papers of journalist and television reporter Benjamin Vernon Williams (1927-2012), first African American television reporter in northern California, include home movies taken in Costa Rica, Robben Island (South Africa), the Caribbean, and in Cuba.
Additional Information
Search the library using the catalog.
Consult AAMLO's finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
We are working to create new resource guides. Have an idea for a new guide? Contact us at aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org.
