Create a free New York Public Library account to gain free access to many digital resources (including some textbooks) available from NYPL. New York State residents and students are eligible for a NYPL library card (in addition to Brooklyn and Queens Public library resources).
If you do not have a public library card, see the information below for each library system on how to obtain a library card and access materials remotely:
New York Public Library serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. NYPL has a wide range of digital resources —e-books, audiobooks, databases, the Research Library's Digital Collections, and more. Click here for information en español. If you do not have a public library card, during their period of closure due to COVID-19, you can apply through their SimplyE app.
Brooklyn Public Library serves those in the borough of Brooklyn. If you do not have a library card, you may apply for their eCard in order to have remote access to their many free electronic resources.
During the COVID-19 closures, Queens Public Library has expanded access to their collections of digital materials which includes thousands of free eBooks, audiobooks, eMagazines, songs, movies, and videos. Apply for an eCard online while libraries are closed.
Logon to these NYPL digital resources after creating an online account with your free NYPL card:
The American Mosaic: The African American Experience:
The American Mosaic: African American Experience is organized by eras covering African American "history, biographies, literature, arts, music, popular culture, folklore, business, slavery, the struggle for civil rights, politics, sports, education, science, medicine, and more." Visit their Resource Lists on the following topics for additional online resources:
Independent Voices: An Open Access Collection of and Alternative Press:
Open access online collection of newspapers, magazines and journals from alternative presses providing a voice to many communities including Black Power advocates, Hispanics, extreme right-wing press in addition to alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
History Vault (Proquest):
A digital collection of manuscript and archival materials focusing on the 20th Century including main collections such as:
Black Freedom Movement and Civil Rights (includes records of four of the most important civil rights organizations of the 1950s and 1960s: NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and CORE).
Southern Life and Slavery (documenting the realities of slavery "at the most immediate grassroots level in Southern society" providing "some of the most revealing documentation in existence on the functioning of the slave system."