As an institution, Duke University grapples with legacies of racialized oppression and seeks to celebrate stories of resilience within Black and Indigenous communities. As part of this work, Duke Libraries has put together resource guides to uplift these stories. Those resources are modified and presented below.
Black History at Duke
- Black History at Duke Library Resource Guide: https://guides.library.duke.edu/duke-black-history
- The following secondary source materials contain information about African-American history at Duke. Clicking on the links will take you to the catalog record for each item.
- Biondi, Martha. The Black Revolution on Campus. Berkeley: University of California Press, c2012.
- Brodkin, Karen. Caring by the Hour: Women, Work, and Organizing at Duke Medical Center. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, c1988.
- Cohen, Robert and David J. Snyder, eds. Rebellion in Black and White: Southern Student Activism in the 1960s. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
- Duke University. Legacy, 1963-1993: Thirty Years of African-American students at Duke University. Durham: Duke University, 1995. (View digitized volume.)
- Kean, Melissa. Desegregating Private Higher Education in the South: Duke, Emory, Rice, Tulane, and Vanderbilt. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c2008.
- Kean, Melissa. “The Early, Unsuccessful Effort to Desegregate Duke University.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. 62 (Winter 2008/2009): 84-86.
- Knight, Douglas M. Street of Dreams: The Nature and Legacy of the 1960s. Durham : Duke University Press, 1989.
- Rogers, Ibram H. The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
- Segal, Theodore. Point of Reckoning: The Fight for Racial Justice at Duke University. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021.
- Turner, Jeffrey A. Sitting in and Speaking Out: Student Movements in the American South, 1960-1970. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2010.
- Tweedy, Damon. Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine. New York: Picador, 2015.
Duke undergraduate and graduate students have written course papers, honors papers, and theses on the major themes in African-American history at the University. Clicking on one of the links will take you to the finding aid or the catalog record for that item.
Main Campus
Segregation and Desegregation:
- Kotelanski, Jorge. Prolonged and Patient Efforts: The Desegregation of Duke University, 1948-1963 (1990)
- Morrin, Douglas S. Segregation at Duke Hospital, 1930-1995 (1995)
- Perretti, Peter. The Divinity School and Desegregation: An Abortive Blow Against the Status Quo, 1948-1952 (1976)
- Smith, Chandler C. Desegregation and the Admissions Policies at Duke University (1972)
The Silent Vigil, 1968:
- Gartin, Ashley. Unity and the Duke Vigil: Civil Rights Challenges at Duke University (2012)
- Hanberry, Jane M. The Duke Vigil: A Culmination of Issues (1976)
- Henderson, David L. A Journal of the Duke Vigil (c. 1960s)
- Segal, Theodore D. ‘A New Genesis’: The ‘Silent Vigil’ at Duke University, April 5th-12th, 1968 (1977)
- Toro, Kim L. The Silent Vigil (1992)
Allen Building Takeover, 1969:
- Ellis, Atiba. The Occupation of the Allen Building at Duke University: The Synthesis of Student Revolts (1992)
- Fair, Bryan K. The Allen Building Takeover: Origins of Black Student Protests at Duke University, 1966-1969 (1982)
- Lundberg, Greg. Black Power and the Allen Building Takeover: A Culmination of Issues (1986)
- Kendall, Deborah. Framing the Takeover: How Local Newspapers Reported the February, 1969 Racial Demonstrations at Duke University (1983) (Includes clippings from area newspapers from 1969)
- Yannella, Don. Race Relations at Duke University and the Allen Building Takeover (1985)
Employees:
- Bailey, Kevin. Bad Blood on the Ward: A Study of the Politics of Labor Organizing at Duke Hospital, 1974-1976 (1991)
- Creamer, Robert W. Duke Employees Local 77: Confrontation over Impartial Arbitration of Grievances (undated)
- Ludwig, Erik. First Class Education and ‘Second Hand’ Workers: The Struggle for Unionization During Duke’s Decade of Development: 1965-68 (1998)
- Wise, Leah. Stirring the Pot: Oliver Harvey’s Narrative Account of the Struggle to Organize Duke University (1980) (Contains an oral history of longtime Duke janitor and Local 77 leader, Oliver Harvey, including details on working conditions for African-American staff at Duke during the Jim Crow era.
Duke University Reports and Studies:
- A White Paper on Institutional Racism at Duke (1972), Duke YM-YWCA Records, 1968-1979
- A Joint Report for the Academic Affairs and Student Affairs Committees on the Subject of Black/White Relations (1982), Office of Minority Affairs records, 1969-1993
- Lattimore, Caroline (Dean). Report to the President’s Council on Black Affairs on the Office of Minority Affairs (1985), Office of Minority Affairs records, 1969-1993
- Final Report (1989), Black on White Steering Committee Records, 1988-1989
- Final Report (1989), President’s Committee to Address Discrimination in the Classroom Records, 1982-1989
- Report on Women and African-American Faculty (1989), H. Keith H. Brodie, President, Records, 1963-1994
- Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on African and Afro-American Studies (1991), Department of African and African American Studies Records, 1966-1981
- Diversity At Duke University: A Ford Foundation-funded Portfolio Assessment, 1997. Office of Intercultural Affairs reference collection, 2000-ongoing
- Campus Culture Initiative Reports in Service to the Steering Committee (2007), Campus Culture Initiative records, 2006-2007
- Report of the Duke University Task Force on Bias and Hate Issues, 2016. (website and online copy of report)
- Commission on Memory and History report, 2017. (website and online copy of report)
- “Activating History for Justice at Duke,” 2018. (website and online copy of report)
- Chapman, Joyce, et al. “Understanding the Experiences and Needs of Black Students at Duke.” Duke University Libraries, 2020. (online copy of report)
- See also Zabala, Pamela. “Black Students at Duke: Qualitative Analysis of Focus Group Data-December 2019.” Duke University Libraries, 2020..
Related Reports and Studies:
- Studies Made by “Associate Units” in Two White Colleges and Two Negro Colleges in North Carolina, May 12, 1941 (1941)
- McConahay, John B., et al. Has Racism Declined? It Depends upon Who’s Asking and What Is Asked (1980)
- Sindler, Allan P. “Youth and the American Negro Protest Movement: A Local Case Study of Durham, North Carolina.” (1964)
- Tyson, Will. Roommate and Residence Hall Racial Composition Effects on Interracial Friendships among First-Year College Students (2004)
Other:
- Lewis, Andrea. “The Association is Dying”: Black Student Activism and the Evolution of Conscious Space-Making at Duke University (2014)
Additional Resources
- Enslavement at Duke Homestead: https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/duke-homestead/history/enslavement-duke-homestead
- African Americans in Durham: a research guide to manuscript and archival collections in the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. Many of the collections listed here have a Duke University connection.
- Black History at Duke Health: a research guide to manuscript and archival collections at the Duke University Medical Center Archives.
- Durham Civil Rights Heritage Project: Created by the North Carolina Collection at the Durham County Library, the Durham Civil Rights Heritage Project focuses on collecting photographs and stories about the Civil Rights Movement in Durham. Oral histories of Durham’s civil rights era have also been gathered by the project.
Native American & Indigenous History at Duke
Main Campus
- Native American and Indigenous History at Duke Library Resource Guide: https://guides.library.duke.edu/duke-native-americans
- The information in this guide is separated into four sections. Please use the tabs to navigate to each section. Links to relevant digitized materials are included in each section.
- Cherokee Industrial School: Documentation about the 1880s residential school for young men and boys of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians connected to Trinity College.
- Chaffin, Nora. Trinity College, 1839-1892: The Beginnings of Duke University. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1950.
- Use the index to locate passages about the Cherokee students. Chaffin’s book describes the difficult experiences of the Cherokee students, some of whom attempted to run away to return to their home.
- Ingram, Jill Elizabeth. Man in the Middle: The Boarding School Education of Will West Long. 2008. Western Carolina University, M.A. Thesis.
- You can request this thesis through Duke’s Interlibrary Loan service. Read more about that service here.
- For a brief biography of Will West Long, one of the Cherokee students, see this WCU website.
- Chaffin, Nora. Trinity College, 1839-1892: The Beginnings of Duke University. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1950.
- Ortega, Bishop, Scarlett Guy, and Danny Bell, narrators. “Artist Bishop Ortega with Scarlett Guy (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) and Danny Bell (Lumbee/Coharie).” Nasher Museum Podcast, episode 8. July 10, 2022. Available online.
- McNeill, Cheyenne. “Four N.C. schools identified in Interior Department’s Federal Indian boarding school report.” EducationNC. May 13, 2022.
- For more information about the forced assimilation of Native Americans through residential boarding schools, see: Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2020.
- Native Americans at Duke University: Secondary resources and archival collections on Native Americans at Duke from the 1900s to the present.
- Elliott, Walker. “‘I Told Him I’d Never Been to His Back Door for Nothing’: The Lumbee Indian Struggle for Higher Education under Jim Crow.” North Carolina Historical Review XC (1), January 2013: 49-87.
- Keene, Adrienne J. “College Pride, Native Pride” and Education for Native Nation Building: Portraits of Native Students Navigating Freshman Year. 2014. Harvard University, Ed.D. dissertation. Available through Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global.
- Chapter 6 relates the experiences of a first-year student at Duke ca. 2012-2013.
- Peters, Brian. 2018. “Fighting Isolation: How Four Native Women Created Change at UNC-Chapel Hill.” American Indian Quarterly 42(3): 344–74.
- Student Groups & Campus Offices: A list of student groups and campus offices for Native American students, employees, and alumni.
- North Carolina Native Communities: A list of links to North Carolina tribes and other Native American organizations in North Carolina.”