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

Image of a Benjamin Banneker postal stamp featuring a portrait of Banneker with a smaller, full-body illustration of Banneker with a telescope in the foreground.

African American Scientists

with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Learn more about some of the most notable African American scientists and their discoveries, from Benjamin Banneker to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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Scan of NAACP poster listing statistics regarding the 3,436 lynchings that occurred between 1889 and 1922. States "Do you know that the United States is the Only Land on Earth where people are burned at the stake?" Reports that 83 women have been lynched in the United States.

Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

with Anthony J. Badger

Learn more about the start of the Civil Rights movement.

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Illustration from 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly showing an African American man voting for the first time

Reconstruction and Citizenship

with Eric Foner

Discover the changes in definitions of citizenship before, during, and after the Civil War.

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Photograph of a man with graying, curly hair, smiling at the camera in front of a wooden wall. He wears a dark suit jacket, a blue collared shirt, and a red and blue paisley tie.

Slavery and the Early American Economy

with Edward L. Ayers

Consider how contemporary events affected American slavery at different points in history.

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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.

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The front cover of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, featuring a small photorealistic illustration of Eliza and Lizzie Scott in dresses holding hands above two larger illustrations of Dred and Harriet Scott, pictured separately

Dred and Harriet Scott: A Family Story of Slavery and Freedom

with Matthew Pinsker

Learn about the family that brought the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) case to the Supreme Court.

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Photograph shows a procession of African Americans, with two women in the foreground, carrying signs for equal rights, integrated schools, decent housing, and an end to bias.

The March on Washington: A Virtual Tour

with Clayborne Carson

Join the director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University for a virtual tour of the 1963 March on Washington.

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Scan of the US Constitution, printed in September 1787.

Race and the American Constitution: A Struggle Toward National Ideals

by James Oliver Horton

Read how both pro-slavery and anti-slavery movements used the Constitution to promote their beliefs.

Essay

An engraving shows four people doing various tasks with harvested tobacco in an open shed, including pulling pieces of the leaves apart, and winding rope.

The Origins of Slavery

by Ira Berlin

Gain a greater understanding of the slave trade and the forced migration and diaspora of Africans.

Essay

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. smiling and talking with each other while a police escort stands near.

The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

with Peniel Joseph

Dive into the lives and work of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Video

Black women wearing white shirts (with a blue ridged neckline) and blue skirts, and Black men in white shirts, white pants, and brown hats, cutting sugar cane.

Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas

with Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie Harris

Learn how sexuality was a point of both exploitation and resistance for enslaved people.

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The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America

with Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Explore the history of race, crime, and modern US history.

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