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

A color photograph of a row of ten female Grandassa models with natural, afro-style hair wearing dresses made from brightly colored African-inspired motifs. Three men standing on a small podium behind the models are wearing patterned dashiki shirts. The dark blue wall behind them is covered with posters advertising Black theater performances, shows, and celebrations.

Naturally ’68 at the Apollo Theater

ca. 1968

View a photograph from a key convergence of artists and models amid the Black is Beautiful movement.

Primary Source

Lead Belly, a Black musician, playing a guitar and singing into a microphone in front of a dark background.

Blues in the 1930s and 1940s

by David Evans

Explore the evolution of the blues in this era.

Essay

A wedding near a fireplace. The groom is a Black man wearing a dark coat, white pants, and a white shirt. The bride is a Black woman wearing a white dress. Groomsmen and bridesmaids are behind the couple, and the officiant (wearing a dark coat and pants and holding a book) is faced in the couple's direction. Behind the officiant are more witnesses, a bassist, and a clarinetist (the latter musicians sitting).

Dressing Freedom: The Wedding Clothing of Freed People

by Brenda E. Stevenson

Explore the importance of wedding clothing for freed people during Reconstruction.

Essay

A jet of water in a tiled water fountain labeled 'Yemoja" [also known as Yemayá] in a body of water, topped with a white bust of a woman and, above the bust, a dark neon sign reading "The Surprise."

“Yemayá”

by Grupo Abbilona

View and listen to an Afro-Cuban example of syncretic religious practices.

Video

A group of five Black women wearing white and black headdresses, black cloaks, white blouses, brightly colored skirts, and high-heeled shoes, follows a small boy wearing colorful clothing adorned by feathers, holding a piece of wood and a small ax.

“Festival of Our Lady of the Rosary, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil”

ca. 1770s

View this print of a festival led by enslaved people in Brazil.

Primary Source

Three young Black men wearing tracksuits and white gloves dancing as another young Black man inverts his body on a piece of cardboard. Behind them is a graffitied wall.

Breakdancers in New York

1984

View an example of b-boy culture from 1980s New York.

Primary Source

A dark abstract painting of a mask with horns

“Les Fétiches”

1938

View Loïs Mailou Jones’s painting, which brought Négritude from literature to art.

Work of Art

A black-and-white photograph of Marcus Garvey, a Black man wearing a dark suit, light-colored vest, white shirt, and dark tie, sitting in a wooden chair next to a desk filled with papers, holding a handkerchief in his right hand and a gavel in his left.

Marcus Garvey at His Desk

1924

View this photograph of Marcus Garvey, the founder and leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

Primary Source

Dark orange cover for a pamphlet edition of two speeches by Frederick Douglass

“West India Emancipation”

1857

Read Frederick Douglass’s first use of the phrase “If there is no struggle there is no progress.”

Primary Source

Masthead of The Liberator, featuring a depiction of an enslaved family next to an auctioneer, whose lectern reads "Slaves Horses & Other Cattle to be sold at 12 OO."

The Question of Naming in “The Liberator”

1831

Explore responses to questions of Black identity and nomenclature in the famed abolitionist newspaper.

Primary Source

Front page of The Colored American newspaper

“Why We Should Have a Paper”

1837

Read the founding manifesto of The Colored American newspaper.

Primary Source

A black-and-white engraving of Solomon Northup, a Black man wearing a white hat, shirt, and pants, sitting on a box, a broomstick leaning against his left arm. Below the image, the name Solomon Northup in handwriting and the words "In his plantation suit"

Solomon Northup Remembers the New Orleans Slave Market

1853

Read an excerpt from Northup’s autobiographical account, Twelve Years a Slave.

Primary Source