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

First typed page of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The Path to Brown v. Board of Education

with Justin Driver

Learn more about the Brown v. Board case as it made its way to the Supreme Court and the Court’s historic decision.

Video

A black-and-white photograph of nine Black students, six girls and three boys, with Mayor Robert Wagner of New York City.

School Desegregation

with Justin Driver

Learn more about the immediate aftermath and impact of the Brown decision.

Video

A black-and-white image of a photograph of twelve Black men in three rows of four (and a child on one man's knee, second row left), all wearing dark suits and hats, superimposed on a photograph of Niagara Falls.

Resistance to Jim Crow During the Nadir

with Mia Bay

Explore how African Americans organized against the pernicious racism of Jim Crow.

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 black-and-white photograph of Willie O'Ree, a Black man, coming off the ice wearing a white Boston Bruins uniform.

The Desegregation of Hockey

with George and Darril Fosty

Learn about the path toward Willie O’Ree breaking the color barrier in the National Hockey League.

Video

Black men and women laying on the ground and standing (those standing holding tools, such as washboards and basins and an axe) in front of Union soldiers in uniform, themselves in front of a house.

Civil War “Contrabands”

1861–1865

View two photographs of self-emancipated people described as “contrabands” of the Union Army during the Civil War.

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 color photograph of Harry Edwards, a smiling bald Black man with a gray beard, wearing sunglasses and a dark Nehru jacket.

The Olympic Project for Human Rights

with William C. Rhoden

Learn more about athletic protests in the 1960s and their modern reverberations.

Video

A color print of Wilberforce University showing seven small tan and white buildings and a large T-shaped white building with a brown roof surrounding a quadrangle of lawns, paths, and trees.

The Founding of Black Colleges

by Jelani M. Favors

Learn more about the birth and evolution of historically Black colleges and universities.

Essay

A black-and-white photograph of Black men in WWII aviator uniforms sitting, their attention directed out of frame.

African Americans’ Involvement in World War II

by Marcus S. Cox

Learn more about how the Double V campaign was made manifest at home and abroad.

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