LibGuides: Government Documents: Black Women's History Month: April 2025

Black Women's History Month, April 2025

(Photo of the Birmingham Campaign by Marion S. Trikosko for U.S.News & World Report, 15 May 1963.)

Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940

"American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1940" includes interviews with Black women, including:

Mary Willingham, practical nurse, Georgia

National Park Service sites

Black Women in the Workforce

Black Women in the Arts

Black Women and Health

Minority women and breast cancer : hearing before the Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, second session, October 4, 1994
Birthing while Black : examining America’s Black maternal health crisis : hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventeenth Congress, first session, May 6, 2021
Demographic and health characteristics among a diverse group of adult black females in the United States : 2002-2012
African American women heart disease disparities fact sheet (2024)
Surgeon General’s report on women and smoking. African American women and smoking (2001)

Black Women in Specific Professions

Window dressing on the set : women and minorities in television : a report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights (1977)
Bessie Coleman: Topics in Chronicling America
Coleman (1892-1926) was the first African-American woman to earn a pilot's license.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938

Some of the manuscripts and photographs created by workers in the Federal Writers' Project interviews with former slaves are available on the Library of Congress website.

Approximately 60 audio file interviews of former slaves, many of them women, are also available.

Statistical Sources

The United States releases tremendous amounts of statistical data, broken down demographically. Some of the best sites include:

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)

U.S. Census Bureau

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

National Center for Education Statistics