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

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

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 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 string of 8 multicolored glass beads

Beads and Trans-Saharan Trade

with Abidemi Babatúnde Babalola

Learn more about the importance of beads in African kingdoms, and their impact on the archaeological record.

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 stylized post of (from top to bottom) a bearded man atop a horse, held up by a woman.

Òpó (veranda post)

by Olowe of Ise

View a modern example of Yoruba art and design traditions.

Primary Source

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 gold staff with two human figures on either side of a spider web.

Staff of Office (ȯkyeame)

Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century

View an example of a staff held by high ranking officials in West Africa.

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