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

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

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

George Clinton, a Black man, wearing a bright red wig, dark blue vest, and multicolored shirt with skulls and crossbones, playing the keyboard as other musicians surround him.

Let’s Talk about “Black Panther” and Afrofuturism

with Steve Vasquez

Learn more about the history of Afrofuturism upon the release of the 2018 Marvel film.

Video

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

Toni Morrison, a Black woman wearing a multicolored sweater, white blouse, and black pants, next to her son Harold (wearing a brown sweater and khaki pants) and Slade (wearing a black shirt and red pants), in front of a multi-story house and trees.

“Culture Zone; Black to the Future”

by Walter Mosley

Read this column on the history of, and potential for, Afrofuturism and Black writers in science fiction.

Essay

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

A lithographic print juxtaposing two black faces stylized as African masks framed by yellow circular emblems with a black panther in the center. The words [BLACK IS / BEAUTIFUL] are inscribed around each panther. The print appears in quadrants, with one face in three-quarter view in the top left and the other face appearing straight on in the lower left. The panther emblems appear in a grid in the top right and bottom left quadrants, with the top and bottom rows extending across the full print.

“Negro Es Bello II”

1969

View an example of art from the Black Arts movement by Elizabeth Catlett.

Primary Source

“Hey Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean”

ca. 1952

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

Video

Colin Powell, a gray-haired, bespectacled Black man, wearing a black jacket, white shirt, and polka dot (white dots on black fabric) tie

Commencement Address by Gen. Colin Powell

1994

Watch Gen. Powell’s speech at one of the premier historically Black universities.

Video