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

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 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 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

Drawing of various sections of the cicada.

Benjamin Banneker’s Study of the Cicada

1800

Read Banneker’s derivation of the seventeen-year cycle of the cicada, one of the first scientists to make this observation.

Primary Source

A printed flyer for "THE BLACK ARTS PARADE!!," featuring a two-sided mask in the top right of the flyer.

Building the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School

1965–1966

View early documents from a center for the Black Arts movement in Harlem, founded by the poet LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka).

Primary Source

Black and white print of Black men, women, and children reading the news of their emancipation.

The Union Army and Juneteenth

1865

Learn more about the origins of Juneteenth through this print.

Primary Source

The image is a black-and-white portrait of Langston Hughes, the renowned African American poet, playwright, and leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He is shown from the chest up, wearing a suit with a tie and a sweater vest underneath. He has a warm smile and is looking slightly downward, with soft lighting casting gentle shadows on his face. The background is plain, and the photograph has a classic, vintage feel, likely taken in the mid-20th century.

“I Too”: Langston Hughes’s Afro-Whitmanian Affirmation

by Steven Tracy

Explore Hughes' "I, Too" poem, its connection to Walt Whitman, and its role in affirming Black identity in America.

Essay

The sign for The Crossroads, featuring a ring of three blue guitars (each facing a different direction) on the bottom and the highways 61 and 49 signs above.

Clarksdale: Myth, Music, and Mercy in the Mississippi Delta

by Shelley Ritter

Read about musician Muddy Waters, the blues, and the historical exhibits at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Essay

Photograph of a mural of Robert Johnson (a Black man holding a guitar while wearing a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie, and dark hat), painted in black and white and framed by wisps of smoke, on a purple wall.

Robert Johnson and the Rise of the Blues

by Elijah Wald

Read about Robert Johnson and the rise and evolution of blues music.

Essay

AP African American Studies Resource Library

Origins of the African American Musical Tradition

with Charles Hughes

The Memphis Sound

with Charles Hughes

Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe

with Charles Hughes

The Color Line and “Double Consciousness”

by Trudier Harris

The New York Silent Protest Parade in Photographs

1917

The Origins of African American Musical Traditions

with Portia K. Maultsby

Benjamin Banneker’s Study of the Cicada

1800

Building the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School

1965–1966

The Union Army and Juneteenth

1865

“I Too”: Langston Hughes’s Afro-Whitmanian Affirmation

by Steven Tracy

Clarksdale: Myth, Music, and Mercy in the Mississippi Delta

by Shelley Ritter

Robert Johnson and the Rise of the Blues

by Elijah Wald

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