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

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

Oil painting of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman. She is smiling facing forward with her hands clasped in front of her body, holding a black book with gold-colored text [HOLY BIBLE]. Lacks is wearing a red dress with a white flower pattern and small belt.

“Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine”

2017

View Kadir Nelson’s portrait and tribute to Henrietta Lacks.

Primary Source

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

A map on yellowed paper.

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

Gwendolyn Brooks, a bespectacled Black woman, wearing a brown and magenta floral shirt and a brown head cover.

“We’re the Only Colored People Here”

1945

Read a short story that would grow into Gwendolyn Brooks’s novel Maud Martha (1953).

Primary Source

A typed title page of a book.

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

Masthead of the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper.

Clarissa Reed Searches for Her Family

1883

Read a formerly enslaved woman’s plea for information about her lost parents and siblings.

Primary Source

A Black Haitian general (wearing a pointed and feathered hat, dark coat with tails and epaulets, white pants, and dark boots) holding a book next to other troops, as a priest in formal robes and holding a staff looks above toward an image of God.

Preliminary Declaration from the Constitution of Haiti

1805

Read a translation of some of Haiti’s founding principles as an independent nation.

Primary Source

Black and white photograph of a large group of people, mostly women, posed around the exterior of a large Italianate style mansion. The figures are arranged on the building's multi-level balconies, stairs, and around a rectangular pool on the ground level. The photograph is mounted on a piece of gray cardboard that has sustained loss at the top right and bottom right corners. In the bottom right corner is black script that is partially missing.

Convention of Madam C. J. Walker Agents

1924

View an example of the extent and success of Madam C. J. Walker’s business empire through this photograph.

Primary Source