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

A string of 8 multicolored glass beads

Beads and Trans-Saharan Trade

with Abidemi Babatúnde Babalola

Learn more about the importance of beads in African kingdoms, and their impact on the archaeological record.

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 black-and-white photograph of W. C. Handy, a Black man wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and light tie, holding a trumpet.

Origins of the African American Musical Tradition

with Charles Hughes

Learn more about how musical and performative traditions from Africa and diaspora became modern American genres.

Video

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 written legal document from 1781 certifying Cuffee Wells' purchase of freedom.

Doctor Cuffee Saunders

1781

Read about how Cuffee Wells Saunders gained his freedom.

Primary Source

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 photgraph of Shareef Abdur-Rahim, a light-skinned Black man wearing a white Portland Trail Blazers uniform, holds a basketball as Reggie Evans (a dark-skinned Black man in a green and yellow Seattle SuperSonics uniform) defends.

A Thematic Conversation with Shareef Abdur-Rahim

2025

Learn more about Abdur-Rahim’s path to the NBA, Team USA, the G League, and making a place for Muslim professional athletes.

Video

A hand-colored map of the world in two hemispheres, with routes of the African slave trade and a star on the state of Georgia.

The Color Line and “Double Consciousness”

by Trudier Harris

Examine the importance of “the mask,” “the veil,” and “the color line” in works by Dunbar, Du Bois, and Ellison.

Essay

Lines of women primarily in white dresses and hats marching in formation. Between the first and second lines, a man in a dark suit and hat holds a sign reading "RACE PREJUDICE IS THE OFFSPRING OF IGNORANCE AND THE MOTHER OF LYNCHING."

The New York Silent Protest Parade in Photographs

1917

Explore this response to white supremacist violence led by the NAACP.

Primary Source

A black-and-white photograph of a Black man wearing a dark turban, jacket, coat, and tie, seated, holding a cane in his right hand.

Narrative and Photograph of Omar Ibn Said

ca. 1850

Learn more about the capture and enslavement of African people through this photograph and narrative.

Primary Source

A black-and-white engraving of Black men and women in states of ecstatic prayer (kneeling, prostrating, some with arms outstretched) at the feet of a preacher standing in a canopied dais with right arm raised.

The Origins of African American Musical Traditions

with Portia K. Maultsby

Explore the building blocks of African American music and performance.

Video