African American National Biography Project

The African American National Biography Project is a joint project of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press. The object of the project is to publish and maintain a database of African Americans similar in scope to the American National Biography.^[1]

The African American National Biography (AANB) was published in print in 2008,^[2] with a supplement published in 2013.^[3]

The database, which is continually updated, includes many entries by noted scholars, among them Sojourner Truth by Nell Irvin Painter; W. E. B. Du Bois by Thomas Holt; Rosa Parks by Darlene Clark Hine; Miles Davis by John Szwed; Muhammad Ali by Gerald Early; and President Barack Obama by Randall Kennedy. In 2008 the AANB was selected as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, was named a Library Journal Best Reference work, and awarded Booklist Editors’ Choice — Top of the List.^[1]

The general editors of the project are Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, while the executive editor is Steven J. Niven of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute.^[1]