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

A sepia photograph of a stone house with a shingled roof.

Antebellum Black Women Resisting Enslavement

by Emma Lapsansky-Werner

Explore Black women’s role in the Christiana Resistance, the abolitionist press, and other means of resisting enslavement.

Essay

A map of the coast of Liberia, with the Atlantic Ocean appearing diagonally in the middle of the map.

The First Age of Reform

by Ronald G. Walters

Learn more about the debates related to colonization in the context of other antebellum reform movements.

Essay

A black and white etching of Haitian revolutionaries fighting French soldiers.

Connections Between the American and Haitian Revolutions

by Laurent Dubois

Understand the relationship between the Haitian Revolution and American Revolution.

Essay

An engraving of a white-haired Frederick Douglass standing at a desk, wearing a dark jacket and waistcoat, dark bow tie, and white shirt and pants, shaking the hand of another Black man wearing a white shirt, as others wait to greet him at left

Frederick Douglass: From Slavery to Freedom

by Steven Mintz

Read about Frederick Douglass from his childhood and youth as an enslaved person and his legacy as a leading abolitionist and equal rights advocate.

Essay

The sign for The Crossroads, featuring a ring of three blue guitars (each facing a different direction) on the bottom and the highways 61 and 49 signs above.

Clarksdale: Myth, Music, and Mercy in the Mississippi Delta

by Shelley Ritter

Read about musician Muddy Waters, the blues, and the historical exhibits at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Essay

Photograph of a mural of Robert Johnson (a Black man holding a guitar while wearing a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie, and dark hat), painted in black and white and framed by wisps of smoke, on a purple wall.

Robert Johnson and the Rise of the Blues

by Elijah Wald

Read about Robert Johnson and the rise and evolution of blues music.

Essay

A stereoscope card of a field of sisal fibers with a house in the background leading to a Mexican pyramid.

Diverse Roles of Africans in Early American Colonization

by Matthew Restall

Explore the ways free and enslaved Africans influenced Latin America in the sixteenth century.

Essay

Five portraits of men (abolitionists in Brazil), below a portrait of Princess Isabel (wearing a blue dress with a white frill) and four shirtless Black men dancing next to a pole as a Black woman wearing a pink dress looks on.

Slavery and Freedom in Brazil

by Keila Grinberg

Explore the pervasive impact of slavery in Brazil, and the long fight to abolish the system of enslavement.

Essay

A page from a book with the title "The Statues at Large" in large, gothic font.

Legislating Reproduction and Racial Difference

from Women and the American Story, The New York Historical

Take a deep dive into the legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem.

Essay

James Forten, Sailmaker

by Julie Winch

Read about James Forten, an African American craftsman and businessman in nineteenth-century Philadelphia who employed an integrated workforce.

Essay

A black-and-white photograph of a serious-looking, dark-haired Black woman wearing a dark coat, dress with a white collar, earrings, and a white veil on the back of her head

Mary Ellen Pleasant, Freedom-Fighting Entrepreneur

by Lynn M. Hudson

An introduction to Mary Ellen Pleasant, an abolitionist and businesswoman who flourished on the East and West Coasts.

Essay

A large group of White men in top hats congregating in a city street with a steeple in the background

Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street‘s First Black Millionaire

by Shane White

Explore Jeremiah Hamilton‘s career, including his response to the Draft Riots of 1863.

Essay

AP African American Studies Resource Library