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

Three young Black men wearing tracksuits and white gloves dancing as another young Black man inverts his body on a piece of cardboard. Behind them is a graffitied wall.

Breakdancers in New York

1984

View an example of b-boy culture from 1980s New York.

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A black-and-white photograph of Marcus Garvey, a Black man wearing a dark suit, light-colored vest, white shirt, and dark tie, sitting in a wooden chair next to a desk filled with papers, holding a handkerchief in his right hand and a gavel in his left.

Marcus Garvey at His Desk

1924

View this photograph of Marcus Garvey, the founder and leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

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A printed certificate with names, date, and location written in

Land Order for Richard Brown

1865

View an example of the short-lived promise of “forty acres and a mule.”

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A handwritten copy of the Thirteenth Amendment

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments

1865, 1868, and 1870

Read the three Reconstruction Amendments.

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A black-and-white engraving of Solomon Northup, a Black man wearing a white hat, shirt, and pants, sitting on a box, a broomstick leaning against his left arm. Below the image, the name Solomon Northup in handwriting and the words "In his plantation suit"

Solomon Northup Remembers the New Orleans Slave Market

1853

Read an excerpt from Northup’s autobiographical account, Twelve Years a Slave.

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A handwritten diary entry in cursive

The Capture of Black Seminoles

1836

Read Gen. Thomas Jesup’s diary entries from the Second Seminole War.

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An engraving of a stately building with a rotunda topped with a Haitian flag

“Lecture on Haiti”

1893

Read an excerpt from Frederick Douglass’s lecture on the importance of Haiti in the abolition of slavery.

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An engraving of President Thomas Jefferson, a White man with white hair, wearing a white shirt and dark jacket.

Virginia Asks to Send Rebels to Sierra Leone

1802

Read an outline by Thomas Jefferson for a plan to send rebellious enslaved people to Sierra Leone in Africa.

Primary Source

Title of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) pamphlet on "Structure and Leadership."

“Women in the Movement”

1964

Read this anonymously written memo calling out gender inequality and tokenism in the SNCC.

Primary Source

A typed document on letterhead for the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.

Freedmen’s Bureau, “Circular No. 9”

1867

Read the Freedmen’s Bureau’s circular helping to ensure freedpeople's voting rights.

Primary Source

A typed letter from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.

Freedmen’s Bureau, “Circular No. 8”

1866

Read this order from the Freedmen’s Bureau protecting sharecroppers’ labor rights.

Primary Source

The first page of sheet music for "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

1900

Read the lyrics composed by James Weldon Johnson for what has become known as the Black National Anthem.

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