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

A color illustration of an olive-skinned, gray-haired/bearded St. Luke (with ceremonial halo) writing in Ge'ez.

African-European Interactions Through the Sixteenth Century

by Matthew Salvadore

Learn more about early connections between Africa and Europe.

Essay

A color photograph of large cypress trees emerging out of water, with more trees in the background fading into fog.

The Great Dismal Swamp

with Marcus P. Nevius

Learn why this region of Virginia and North Carolina became fertile ground for maroon communities.

Video

Color postcard of people shopping from items in baskets on a streetside market with the text "Scene in the Green Market, Halifax, N.S." printed at the bottom.

Hockey Clubs in Black Communities

with George and Darril Fosty

Learn more about hockey as a place of Black community organization.

Video

A black-and-white photogrpah of Fidel Castro (a dark-haired, bearded, light-skinned Latino man wearing a dark shirt and pants) and Malcolm X (a light-skinned Black man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a dark trench coat, and a white shirt and dark tie) smiling while sitting on a bed in a hotel room.

Diasporic Solidarity and the Cuban Revolution

with Danielle Pilar Clealand

Learn more about the African American community’s response to the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s and 1960s.

Video

Letter written in brown ink in cursive on yellowing paper.

John Quincy Adams and the Amistad Case

1840

Read a letter written by John Quincy Adams about his role in supporting the Amistad captives’ petition for freedom.

Primary Source

1808 Engraving of the deck and hold of a slave ship illustrating how little space enslaved people had on board

The Middle Passage

1749

Scrutinize an image and a letter that address the experience of kidnapped Africans on a slave ship.

Primary Source

Broadside with text of varying sizes. On the top it reads in all capital letters, "MEN OF COLOR; TO ARMS! TO ARMS!; NOW OR NEVER."

Generations in Captivity: Slavery in America

with Ira Berlin

Understand how the interplay of regional and generational factors shaped the development of slavery in the antebellum United States.

Video

A broadside shows multiple diagrams of a single ship seen from different views. The views illustrate hundreds of captive Africans laying down shoulder to shoulder on multiple layers of the ship.

Slavery and Abolition

1788, 1789

Explore primary sources that worked as propaganda tools for the anti-slavery movement.

Guided Readings

A certificate, with a seal at left reading "Lex in Tenebris" in Latin surrounding a schooner, a flying dove holding a piece of paper reading "Liberia," and a rising sun in the right of the seal. At right, palm tree leaves, with the signature of James Madison below.

American Colonization Society membership certificate

1833

Learn more about this document signed by James Madison.

Primary Source

Aged paper with text of different sizes and fonts, the top of which says, "178 Sugar and Cotton Plantation Slaves!"

Auction catalog of enslaved people from Louisiana

1855

Explore this primary source to learn about the process of buying and selling enslaved people in 1855.

Primary Source