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Black History at Cal

A guide to library and online resources on the history of Black life at UC Berkeley

The Black History at University California Berkeley Library Resource Guide

This library resource guide compiles library and archival materials on some of the over 140 year history of Black people, inclusive of all persons of African descent, at the University of California, Berkeley. For additional information or to suggest additions, please contact the librarian. 

Black students sit in silent protest at Sather Gate

Black students at UC Berkeley, in solidarity with their brothers and sisters at UC San Diego held "Blackout 2010," a silent protest and blockade of Sather Gate. (Photo: Eddie Wright)

 

Black students in caps and gowns seated outside

Black Graduation ceremony at Dwinelle Plaza, 1979. 

Bil Banks and James Baldwin shake hands

UC Berkeley African American Studies Professor Bil Banks took James Baldwin through a library exhibit in Baldwin’s honor, during the author’s 1979 campus visit as Regents’ lecturer. (Photo courtesy of the Bancroft Library)

martin luther king jr. at podium before large crowd

Martin Luther King Jr. speaking on the steps of Sproul Plaza in 1967. (Photo by Ron Riesterer)

Black student protesters holding banner

Protestors march for the creation of a graduate program in African American Studies. November 6, 1987. (Bill Knowland, photographer. Collection of Oakland Museum of California. The Oakland Tribune Collection. Gift of ANG Newspapers.)