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 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 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

Scan of a book page with the text of a law passed in Virginia in 1662.

Study Aid: Slavery and the Law in Seventeenth-Century Virginia

1662–1691

Explore a timeline of laws pertaining to slavery in Virginia from 1662 to 1691.

Teacher Resources

A broadside shows multiple diagrams of a single ship seen from different views. The views illustrate hundreds of captive Africans laying down shoulder to shoulder on multiple layers of the ship.

Slavery and Abolition

1788, 1789

Explore primary sources that worked as propaganda tools for the anti-slavery movement.

Guided Readings

A certificate, with a seal at left reading "Lex in Tenebris" in Latin surrounding a schooner, a flying dove holding a piece of paper reading "Liberia," and a rising sun in the right of the seal. At right, palm tree leaves, with the signature of James Madison below.

American Colonization Society membership certificate

1833

Learn more about this document signed by James Madison.

Primary Source

A typed pamphlet

A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy

1744

Read an excerpt from a 1741 revolt of enslaved people, free Black people, and “Some White People” in colonial New York.

Primary Source