Complete works — not summaries — free to read in full. Search inside every page, and see exactly which source an answer came from.
These are complete works held in the archive — every chapter, start to finish. Open one and read it in the browser.
The point isn't only that the history is here — it's that any claim can be traced back to the document it came from, including the claims the archive makes about its own texts.
Each subject opens with the public-domain works we host in full — every chapter, free, no account.
The historical works here are public domain — free forever, complete, and no one is owed a royalty on them. Nothing about that is a trial for something paid.
The one thing that will ever cost money is a contemporary book by a living Black author, bought once and kept. The author keeps 93% of the list price; our fee is a flat $3 per checkout, paid by the buyer and never deducted from the author's share. No title is licensed yet — when one is, it will be sold that way, and there is no subscription behind it.
Rights pills show exactly what's available for each title — no surprises. Every work here is held in full and opens straight into the reader.
Ask a question and the archive answers from the books it actually holds, citing the chapter behind every claim. If what it holds cannot answer you, it says so instead of guessing.
Answers are drawn only from the works held here, and every claim carries the chapter it came from. Quotation is capped, so the archive points you to the book rather than reprinting it.
Answers take a few seconds. The archive searches every book it holds, reads the passages it finds, and writes only what those passages support.
Full-text search is unlimited and always free — it reads every word of every book held here and shows you the passage in context.
Seven eras spanning the U.S., the Caribbean, and the African continent. Eras holding works in the archive open them; the rest are marked as not yet stocked.
Regional collections are not built yet. Rather than show invented counts, this lists the regions planned and what each will cover. When the geography pass runs, the counts here come from the books themselves — and the regions holding nothing will still be listed, because a gap that is named is the only kind that gets filled.
An account keeps your place in a book across your phone, your laptop and anywhere else you read. Everything in the archive is free to read without one.
So the archive remembers where you stopped reading. That is what an account is for here — every book stays free to read whether you have one or not.
Assign books and follow chapter progress from one dashboard. Reading tracked on this device is shown below; an account syncs it across your own devices.
A private profile for each child, under your account, is designed and not yet built: it is waiting on a children's-privacy review we are not going to shortcut. We'll email you when it opens — nothing else, and you can leave at any time.
Every work the archive holds is free, complete and open without an account — not a sample, not a trial, and not the free half of a paid tier. There is nothing to subscribe to, and this page exists to say so plainly rather than to leave you looking for the catch.
What is free, and stays free: the full text of every public-domain work here, full-text search across all of them, the reader, and reading progress on your device. These are historical documents in the public domain. Charging for access to them is not a business we are interested in being in.
What will one day cost money: a contemporary book by a living Black author, bought once and kept. The author keeps 93% of the list price. Our fee is a flat $3 per checkout — per cart, not per book — paid by the buyer and never taken out of the author's share. Free titles carry no fee at all. No title is licensed yet, so nothing on this site is for sale today.
What is not funded by readers: digitisation, narration and the editorial work of labelling what the archive holds. That is grant and institutional funding, and it is being pursued as such. Nonprofit incorporation is in progress — until it is done, we are not taking donations either, and the reason is on .
BlackArchive exists to preserve, organize, and make Black history and culture accessible worldwide — not just in the United States, but across the full global diaspora. Every book, every answer, and every timeline entry traces back to a citation you can check yourself.
We believe the strongest defense against erasure and misinformation isn't restriction — it's rigor. Nothing gets published here without a source. Nothing gets narrated without cleared rights. Nothing gets claimed without a citation.
In the reader: double-click any word — or tap it on a phone — for a definition. Words with a dotted underline carry a note written by us, about what that word meant in the period the text was written, which is not always what it means now. If narration is playing it pauses while you read.
This platform is built for Black history, Black authors, and Black families — an editorial mission and focus, the same way Essence, Ebony, and BET have always centered Black voices and stories.
BlackArchive is not taking money yet. Nonprofit incorporation is in progress, and until that is done and the IRS has ruled, a contribution here would not be a tax-deductible donation — so we are not going to call it one. Leave your email and we will tell you when supporting the archive actually means something.