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

Seven Black women with Afros raising their right fists.

Black Panther Women in Oakland, CA

1968

View an example of women organizing and protesting in the Black Panther Party.

Primary Source

A Black woman wearing a gold, red, and blue crown, blue necklace, and a green checked royal robe.

Queen Njinga

1830s

Take a different look at Njinga in this portrait.

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Anna Julia Cooper, a Black woman, wearing a black dress with a white center placket, sitting while holding a book.

“A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South”

1892

Read excerpts from Anna Julia Cooper’s book on the importance of Black women’s rights and recognizing their experiences.

Primary Source

Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), a Black woman, wearing her Starfleet uniform (red dress with a black collar and a wavy gold band on each sleeve), with a communications earpiece in her left ear, along with green hoop earrings. She has her hands on a bank of buttons connected to an array of four light screens.

Nichelle Nichols as Uhura in “Star Trek”

1968

Learn more about the impact of Nichols and her television role on Star Trek.

Primary Source

A Black woman wearing a beige jumpsuit with a cinch dancing under a mirrorball reading "Soul Train," as other Black men and women dance around her.

“Soul Train”

1970

Get a sense of Soul Train’s cultural impact through this photograph.

Primary Source

Michelle Obama, presented in a gray skin tone, in a white dress with patches of colored stripes and triangles in front of a powder-blue background. Her right hand rests on her chin as her left hand rests on her knee.

Portrait of Michelle Obama

2018

View Amy Sherald’s portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Work of Art

A portrait of Barack Obama sitting in a brown wooden chair wearing a black suit and white collared shirt. Surrounding President Obama are leaves and flowers of different varieties.

Portrait of Barack Obama

2018

Take a closer look at Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of the first Black president.

Work of Art

Mary Jackson, a bespectacled Black woman wearing a white lab coat over a dark sweater, white shirt, and brooch, writing on a clipboard as engineering instruments surround her.

Mary Jackson at Work

1977

View an image of the first Black woman to be an engineer at NASA.

Primary Source

A button reading "Black is Beautiful," with black text on a white background.

“Kathleen Cleaver on Natural Hair”

1968

Learn more about this element of Afrocentric aesthetics and the embrace of “Black is Beautiful.”

Video

A green book cover with gold text reading "Harriet, the Moses of Her People"

Harriet, the Moses of Her People

1886

Read an authorized description of Tubman’s escape written by a White woman who had interviewed Tubman.

Primary Source

Title page of The Refugee: or the Narrative of Fugitive Slaves in Canada

Harriet Tubman’s reflection in The Refugee

1856

Read Tubman’s memories of enslavement and freedom in her own words.

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A large shallow, round tray shaped basket made of reeds, rush and palmetto coiled and woven together. A faded purple string is woven through the basket on one side and knotted inside the basket.

Rice Fanner Basket

pre-1863

View this artifact of rice cultivation by enslaved people on the South Carolina coast.

Primary Source