AP African American Studies Resource Archive | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

A multicolor (blue, red, tan) map showing the coast of Sierra Leone (blue) and Liberia (red).

African Americans and the Making of Liberia

by Claude A. Clegg III

Explore the founding of Liberia and the impact of the colonization movement.

Essay

A painting depicting a lighter-skinned woman (at left), wearing a white headscarf, blouse, and red skirt, holding a basket of a golden or yellow produce in her left hand and a platter of a red produce in her right hand. A darker-skinned woman (at right) wearing a white headscarf, blouse, and blue jacket stands behind her, her left hand on the other woman's left arm.

Recovering Voices of the Enslaved in Colonial America

by Sophie White

Explore the broader, less explored history of slave narratives in French Louisiana.

Essay

A drawing of an older Black man with gray hair, a black coat and vest, and white collared shirt.

Mutual Assistance: Building Black Community Life in Freedom

by Lois E. Horton

Take a closer look at the history of mutual aid society and their activity in Free Black communities.

Essay

Etching of Rev. Richard Allen, wearing a jacket and white shirt and looking directly ahead.

Richard Allen, Jarena Lee, and the Second Great Awakening

by Margaret Washington

Read about the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Essay

The title page from volume 1 of Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography, The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano, published in New York in 1791

Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, a Self-Made Man

by Vincent Carretta

Explore Equiano’s life story and the influence of his autobiography on the abolitionist movement.

Essay

Phillis Wheatley, a “Genius in Bondage”

by Vincent Carretta

Explore the life, career, and legacy of the poet who was the first person of sub-Saharan African descent to publish a book.

Essay

A map of the continent of Africa from 1770 shows regions, towns, rivers, and lakes.

The Development of Slavery in the Early Modern Atlantic World

by Michael Guasco

Learn about global systems of slavery in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.

Essay

A wedding near a fireplace. The groom is a Black man wearing a dark coat, white pants, and a white shirt. The bride is a Black woman wearing a white dress. Groomsmen and bridesmaids are behind the couple, and the officiant (wearing a dark coat and pants and holding a book) is faced in the couple's direction. Behind the officiant are more witnesses, a bassist, and a clarinetist (the latter musicians sitting).

Dressing Freedom: The Wedding Clothing of Freed People

by Brenda E. Stevenson

Explore the importance of wedding clothing for freed people during Reconstruction.

Essay

Roger Brown, a Black man wearing a blue basketball uniform, slam-dunking a red, white, and blue ABA basketball.

The Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA

with Theresa Runstedtler

Learn more about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and others in the NBA and ABA of the 1960s and 1970s.

Video

A wood sculpture, painted black, in the form of a standing female figure with arms at sides apart from torso, hands on hips, and feet and legs apart; on her head there is a double-ax motif.

Yorùbá Oshe Shango Ceremonial Wand

19th or 20th Century

View this contemporary piece honoring a traditional Yoruba god.

Work of Art

A black-and-white photograph of a goateed Malcolm X wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a striped suit, white shirt, and dark tie, looking toward his left.

The Life of Malcolm X

with Tamara Payne

Examine previously unknown aspects of Malcolm X’s life.

Video

A black-and-white photograph of a large group of Black and White people congregating on a bridge, as cars attempt to pass.

Visualizing the Red Summer Timeline

2015–2025

Learn more about the White supremacist violence that took place in cities across the US in 1919.

	
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