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

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

A vertical timeline from the 1600s to the 2000s noting direct influences from one genre of African American music traditions in pink lines and indirect cross-influences with white arrows.

The Evolution of African American Music

by Portia K. Maultsby

View how African American music evolved over the course of four hundred years through this timeline.

Secondary 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

An engraving showing a hall with benches, a speaker at a rostrum in front and several Black men and women in formal wear looking for seats.

Emigration, Anti-Emigration, and Transatlantic Abolitionism

with Nemata Blyden

Learn more about the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott decision, and the Civil War on emigration.

Video

Ruins of a large brick cathedral (the roof no longer present), with a green tree at right.

Kongo, Christianity, and the Diaspora

with John K. Thornton

Learn more about Kongolese cultural practices merging with Christianity and evolving across the Atlantic.

Video

Kongo and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

with John K. Thornton

Explore the development and evolution of, and forms of resistance against, the Kongolese-Portuguese slave trade.

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

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

AP African American Studies Resource Library

“Little Rock”

1958

“Boycott Cripples City Schools”

1964

“Discourse on Colonialism”

1972

The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program

1966

The Evolution of African American Music

by Portia K. Maultsby

“Original Faubus Fables”

1960

Emigration, Anti-Emigration, and Transatlantic Abolitionism

with Nemata Blyden

Kongo, Christianity, and the Diaspora

with John K. Thornton

Kongo and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

with John K. Thornton

“The Combahee River Collective Statement”

1977

Establishing the Freedmen's Bureau

1865

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

1942

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