Givens Collection of African American Literature

The Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature consists of over 10,000 books, magazines, and pamphlets by or about African Americans.

Welcome

The Givens Collection includes novels, poetry, plays, short stories, essays, literary criticism, periodicals, and biographies that span nearly 250 years of American culture. It has particular strength in the areas of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement.

The collection also holds a significant number of books that relate to African American art, education, social sciences, sports, and entertainment, as well as works by or about continental Africans and Africans in diaspora.

With tens of thousands of archival and manuscript materials that document the history of black literature and culture—correspondence, pamphlets, screenplays, newspaper clippings, photographs, sheet music, ephemera, including the Penumbra Theatre Company Archives—the Givens Collection is an invaluable community and scholarly resource.

Detailed finding aids are available online and in 213 Andersen Library.

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Collection guides
Use collection guides (or finding aids) that describe a collection of archival records, personal papers, or manuscripts to locate material for your research. The guide may be a brief summary or a detailed description and inventory.
Digital collections
Search our digital collections of images, maps, films and videos, audio tapes, rare volumes and publications, and select items from archival collections.
Libraries catalog
Explore the University of Minnesota Libraries catalog for information about rare and special books, periodicals, and other publications held in the Givens Collection.

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Explore the Givens Collection of African American Literature

Photograph of Black uniformed soldiers in a band, holding their instruments, with the Umbra Search logo over the image

Umbra Search African American History

Umbra Search African American History (umbrasearch.org) is a freely available search tool for hundreds of thousands of digitized African American materials across University of Minnesota collections as well as over a thousand other libraries and archives across the country. 

Color drawing depicting Harriet Tubman holding a weapon in the woods

Annotated Bibliophilia

This digitized version of the Givens Collection's Bibliophilia: Collecting Black Books exhibit celebrates the beauty, romance, and workmanship of African American material culture, and demonstrates how the act of collecting African American literature is is tied to placing African American history at the center of America's history and culture.

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Note: Appointments are required to visit the reading room within these hours.
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Give to the collection

Consider a financial donation to help continue to build and preserve our rich collection of African American literature. 

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