In 2009, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Brazil, and Germany ranked as the top five countries, after the United States, for visitors to the site.
[3] By 2009, the organization was selected by New York Public Library reference librarians as one of the top 25 hybrid print and electronic resources for the year.
[4] BlackPast.org was founded in January 2004 by Quintard Taylor, the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington.
[5] The initial website, designed by his teaching assistant George Tamblyn, was intended primarily as a research aid for those students and mainly featured short vignettes of significant people, places and events in African-American history.
Under the direction of Taylor's daughter Jamila, the website was redesigned the following year to incorporate a new architecture and improved navigation features using Dreamweaver, creating the basis for a resource that would serve a larger research audience.
When it became evident that the site was being used outside of the campus community, additional features were added including a bibliography, timeline, links to related websites, major speeches, digital archives and genealogy sections.
[12] Taylor said in a 2008 interview, "The site is the biggest thing I've ever done as far as its reach and impact," adding: "I've received e-mails from China, Nigeria, South Africa and from the Netherlands.