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

A color postcard depicting a brick courthouse with a cupola and entrance pediment in Meridian, Mississippi.

The Story of a Freed Mother and Daughter

by Brenda E. Stevenson

Examine one family’s story in the context of Reconstruction.

Essay

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 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

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

Josiah Thomas Walls

ca. 1870

Explore another example of a Black elected official during Reconstruction.

Primary Source

A collage of portraits of Black and white men in suits and ties in seven rows.

Radical Members of the South Carolina Legislature

1872

View a composite portrait of Reconstruction-era elected officials.

Primary Source

Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance

with Mia Bay

Learn more about the impact of Homer Plessy on segregation and discrimination of railroad travel.

Video

Handwritten fragment of Abraham Lincoln's last Annual Message supporting the Thirteenth Amendment

Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment

by Allen C. Guelzo

Explore Lincoln’s role in the abolition of slavery through the Thirteenth Amendment.

Essay

The image is a sepia-toned portrait of Ida B. Wells, the African American journalist, activist, and anti-lynching crusader. She is shown from the chest up, wearing a high-collared, intricately embroidered lace dress with ruffled details. Her hair is styled in an elegant updo, and she has a composed, determined expression while gazing slightly to the side. The soft lighting and classic photographic style suggest it was taken in the late 19th or early 20th century.

The Persistence of Ida B. Wells: Reform Leader and Civil Rights Activist

by Kristina DuRocher

Learn more about Wells’s fight against lynching, her journalism, and her leadership in the civil rights movement.

Essay

AP African American Studies Resource Library

The Story of a Freed Mother and Daughter

by Brenda E. Stevenson

Resistance to Jim Crow During the Nadir

with Mia Bay

The Founding of Black Colleges

by Jelani M. Favors

The New York Silent Protest Parade in Photographs

1917

Josiah Thomas Walls

ca. 1870

Radical Members of the South Carolina Legislature

1872

Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance

with Mia Bay

Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment

by Allen C. Guelzo

The Persistence of Ida B. Wells: Reform Leader and Civil Rights Activist

by Kristina DuRocher

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