Research Guides: Southern Africa: Getting Started

Resources in the Herskovits Library

Apartheid to Democracy: 20 Years of Transition in South Africa
Companion website to an exhibition created by the Herskovits Library in 2014.
Posters from the Herskovits Library (scanned)
Many of our posters have been scanned and are available to view online. You can narrow your search by topic in the left-hand menu (for example, "Political posters, South African"; "Anti-apartheid movements"; "African National Congress"; and more.
Struggles for Freedom: Preservation Profile on the Melville J. Herskovits Library (Aluka)
A curated selection of materials held by our library,

Online Resources

African Activist Archive
The African Activist Archive is preserving and making available online the 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.

Apartheid South Africa 1948-1980
Apartheid South Africa makes available British government files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980.
Confidential Print. Africa, 1834-1966
The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government 1820-1970, is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research. Confidential Print: Africa covers coastal trading in the early 19th century and the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa. They follow the abuses of the Congo Free State, fights against tropical disease, Italys defeat by the Abyssinians, World War II, apartheid in South Africa and moves towards independence.

DISA: Digital Innovation South Africa
A freely accessible online scholarly resource focusing on the socio-political history of South Africa, particularly the struggle for freedom during the period from 1950 to the first democratic elections in 1994.
Mandela 100
A special website to showcase articles written by thought leaders about the Mandela legacy, the 100 young Mandelas of the future and lessons South Africans learnt from Tata Madiba
Rand Daily Mail (1902-1985)
Quintessential reporting on South Africa from the Boer wars to the apartheid era.

Sabinet Online
Sabinet Online provides a searchable collection of full-text electronic journals on one platform which focuses on information originating from or pertaining to Africa.

Struggles for Freedom Southern Africa (Aluka)
Experience the phenomenal independence movements of southern African nations through this digitized collection of thousands of documents and other primary sources.

International Journalism: South Africa

The library currently receives the following newspapers in hard copy, in addition to online access:

City Press
Chronic Chimurenga
Mail & Guardian
Southern Cross
Sowetan

Use the catalog (NUsearch) for online access and for information on hardcopy locations of the newspapers, and for locating other resources on South Africa. Additionally, search in other databases listed below.

NUsearch
NUsearch is the main search tool for Northwestern University Library, combining the library catalog with a wealth of other databases and online collections.
Access World News
Access World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources. This archive provides comprehensive coverage of current events (history in the making) and historical events.
AllAfrica.com
Contains over a million articles from 100 news publications throughout Africa and from several hundred other sources, including governments, non-governmental organizations and other newsmakers, inside and outside of Africa.
Africa-Wide Information
Africa-Wide Information, produced by NISC South Africa, combines bibliographic databases from around the world to offer extensive coverage of all facets of Africa and African studies dating back to the 16th century. This includes content from South African Studies, African Studies, and African HealthLine.
Communication Source
Combining the content of Communication & Mass Media Complete and Communication Abstracts, this comprehensive resource offers content pertaining to communication, linguistics, rhetoric and discourse, speech-language pathology, media studies and related fields. Coverage goes back to 1915.
PressReader
Online access to hundreds of newspapers from more than 90 countries, displayed in their original format and accessible by country, language, or title.

Exploring South Africa through its Contemporary Literature

Johannesburg, the African City
A collaboration between Northwestern University Libraries and Evanston Township High School, the goal is to provide students with a greater contextual understanding of contemporary South African literature through a combination of discovery, conversation, research, and interactive experience.