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

The Evolution of the Underground Railroad

with Christopher Bonner

Learn more about how the Underground Railroad operated and how the term for this means of escape from bondage emerged.

Video

A color postcard depicting a brick courthouse with a cupola and entrance pediment in Meridian, Mississippi.

The Story of a Freed Mother and Daughter

by Brenda E. Stevenson

Examine one family’s story in the context of Reconstruction.

Essay

A bird's-eye-view map of Memphis, Tennessee, with riverboats in the Mississippi River foreground

The Memphis Sound

with Charles Hughes

Learn how Memphis became a major cultural and musical hub.

Video

A collage of three photographs on a dotted orange background. Clockwise from left: A black-and-white photograph of Bo Diddley, a Black man wearing a dark shirt with ornamental stripes on the sleeves and a dark hat. He is playing a guitar with a rectangular head while singing into a microphone; A black-and-white photograph of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a Black woman in a dark colored dress, looking upward with her guitar hanging by its strap on her shoulder; and a color photograph of Little Richard, a Black man

Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe

with Charles Hughes

Learn more about these three trailblazing musicians.

Video

A multicolored map of Oklahoma and Indian territories.

Emancipation on Indigenous Lands

with Jeffrey Kerr-Ritchie

Learn more about the reach of the Thirteenth Amendment in American Indian nations.

Video

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