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

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

Mountain chart showing change over time in Black (single race, non-Hispanic or Latino), Multiracial Black (non-Hispanic or Latino), and Black Hispanic or Latino populations, in beige, green, and tan, respectively.

The Growing Diversity of Black America

2021

Explore changing demographics in the Black population over the course of the twenty-first century.

The interior of the Dexter Avenue Memorial Baptist church, with light streaming in through multicolored stained-glass windows.

Young Black adults less Protestant than their elders

2021

Compare generational statistics of religious affiliation among Black Americans.

Secondary Source

Phillippe Mouillon, a gray-haired White man (wearing a collared white shirt), sitting next to Aimé Césaire, a Black man, wearing a gray jacket, gray shirt, and patterned blue and white tie. Both are sitting in chairs (Mouillon in a wooden chair, and Césaire in a padded office chair upholstered in black fabric), and Césaire is holding a book in each hand.

“Discourse on Colonialism”

1972

Read the preamble to Aimé Césaire’s treatise, a foundational document of the Négritude movement.

Primary Source

A broadsheet advertisement (folded into four parts, with crease marks/breaks) entitled "From a Slave Cabin to Riches and a Benefactress to Her Race." Features images of glamorous Black women at the top left, top right, and bottom left corners, and a large building (presumably a department store) in the upper middle of the advertisement.

Advertisement for Madam C. J. Walker Products

ca. 1906–1950

Explore the impact of Madam C. J. Walker’s entrepreneurship through this advertisement.

Primary Source

“Hey Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean”

ca. 1952

Watch Ruth Brown’s live performance of an early R&B song.

Video

Oil painting of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman. She is smiling facing forward with her hands clasped in front of her body, holding a black book with gold-colored text [HOLY BIBLE]. Lacks is wearing a red dress with a white flower pattern and small belt.

“Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine”

2017

View Kadir Nelson’s portrait and tribute to Henrietta Lacks.

Primary Source