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

Frontispiece and title page of The Souls of Black Folk, with a photograph of the author, a Black man with a mustache and beard, signed by W. E. B. Du Bois at the bottom left.

“The Souls of Black Folk”

1903

Read excerpts from W. E. B. Du Bois’s foundational book, in which he explains his ideas of “the veil” and “double-consciousness.”

Primary Source

Two Black women wearing light-colored coats look into a glass vitrine case with the title "Arthur A Schomburg, 1874–1938." Atop the case is a matted photograph of Arturo [Arthur] Schomburg.

“The Negro Digs Up His Past”

1925

Read this essay by Afro-Latino historian and collector Arturo Schomburg.

Primary Source

Carter G. Woodson, a Black man, wearing a dark jacket, white shirt (with a small collar), and polka-dotted tie (white dots on a dark fabric) with a tie bar or button.

“The Mis-Education of the Negro”

1933

Read the preface to Carter G. Woodson’s 1933 book.

Primary Source

Augusta Savage, a Black woman, smiling and looking to her left as she holds a small sculpture of an antelope or similar creature in her hands.

Searching for Augusta Savage

with Jeffreen M. Hayes

Learn more about Savage’s art amid the New Negro movement and Harlem Renaissance.

Video

Vinyl record with a brown Columbia records label, adorned with red, white, and blue banners, and the title and artist ("Hope I'll Join the Band," Fisk University Jubilee Singers.)

Songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers

1909–1924

Listen to early recordings of spirituals recorded and popularized by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Video

A black-and-white photograph of James Weldon Johnson, a Black man wearing a light colored blazer, white shirt, and dark bow tie, seated at a desk, turning left toward the camera. He is holding a telephone in his left hand.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” as a Hymn to America

by Noelle Morrissette

Explore the meaning and the impact of James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson’s hymn.

Essay

A black-and-white photograph of a Black man wearing a light-colored suit and dark bowler hat walking with a cane in his right hand; in the background is rubble of buildings destroyed in the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Tulsa after the Greenwood Massacre

1925–1926

View silent film scenes of Tulsa’s Black institutions and organizations in the mid-1920s.

Video

A black-and-white still from a film of a graduation procession of Black men in black caps and gowns with Black women in white dresses behind them.

Graduation Ceremony at Langston University

1925

Watch a silent film of a graduation procession at the only HBCU in Oklahoma.

Video

A film still of a Black man wearing a light-colored cap and a dark jacket holding a box labeled "Mme. C. J. Walker's Vegetable Shampoo, Indianapolis. Ind., USA."

The Madam C. J. Walker Company on Film

1926

View silent film scenes of Walker’s business empire.

Video

A hand-colored portrait of Sissieretta Jones, a Black woman also known here as The Black Patti and the Greatest Singer of Her Race, wearing a gold necklace and earrings and a white dress covered with medals and ribbons.

“UNLADYLIKE2020: Sissieretta Jones”

with Julianna Margulies

Explore the career of the first African American woman to headline at Carnegie Hall.

Video

“UNLADYLIKE2020: Gladys Bentley”

with Lorraine Toussaint and Lisa Wilkerson

Learn more about this trailblazing pianist, musician, and drag entertainer.

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