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

Title page of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

“Treatment of Slaves on Lloyd’s Plantation”

1855

Read Frederick Douglass’s recollection of plantation life in Maryland from his second autobiography.

Primary Source

“Nonviolence and Racial Justice”

1957

Explore Martin Luther King’s philosophy toward nonviolent resistance.

Primary Source

A black-and-white photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at a lectern. Login Required message is an overlay.

Why We Can’t Wait

1964

Read an excerpt from Martin Luther King’s 1964 book, focused on segregation in Birmingham prior to SCLC’s campaign there.

Primary Source

A Black girl wearing sunglasses, a white blouse, and a white and black/white checkered skirt, holds a book in the crook of her left arm while walking to school. A White girl in the background screams at the Black girl as other White boys and girls, and men wearing helmets, look on.

“Little Rock”

1958

Read this poem written by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén after the Little Rock Crisis.

Primary Source

A typed flyer for a "SCHOOL BOYCOTT!" featuring a Black boy with his arms on a windowsill, looking through a broken window.

“Boycott Cripples City Schools”

1964

Read an article about a student protest led by 360,000 Black and Puerto Rican students in New York City.

Primary 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

Typed Black Panther Ten-Point platform in a newspaper.

The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program

1966

Read the Black Panther Party’s guiding manifesto.

Primary Source

Charles Mingus, a Black man wearing a white or light-colored turtleneck and a dark vest, playing an upright bass.

“Original Faubus Fables”

1960

Hear Charles Mingus's musical retort to Arkansas Governor and segregationist Orval Faubus.

Video

Barbara Smith, a Black woman, wearing a polka dot (white dots on black fabric) shirt and speaking into a lectern microphone. In her left hand, she is holding a pamphlet entitled "United States of All."

“The Combahee River Collective Statement”

1977

Read this foundational document of Black feminism.

Primary Source

A typed title page of a book.

Establishing the Freedmen's Bureau

1865

Read the legislation creating the "bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands" amid the US Civil War.

Primary Source

A poster with a drawing of a Black aviator wearing a brown uniform and gray flight vest. Above the aviator is the phrase "Keep us flying!" in italics. Below is "BUY WAR BONDS" in a blue box.

“Should I Sacrifice to Live ‘Half-American?’”

1942

Read the letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier that spawned the Double V movement.

Primary Source

Masthead of the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper.

Clarissa Reed Searches for Her Family

1883

Read a formerly enslaved woman’s plea for information about her lost parents and siblings.

Primary Source