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

Screenshot of thumbnail of video, featuring the title on crumpled paper above a collage of archival photos.

African American Experiences, 1878-Present

with Kellie Carter Jackson, Charles McKinney, and Yohuru Williams

Dive into a panel covering African American experiences after Reconstruction with three historians.

Video

James Forten, Sailmaker

by Julie Winch

Read about James Forten, an African American craftsman and businessman in nineteenth-century Philadelphia who employed an integrated workforce.

Essay

Mary McLeod Bethune seated at her desk in Bethune-Cookman College.

Mary McLeod Bethune’s Impact

with Noliwe Rooks

Learn about Mary McLeod Bethune’s life, her involvement in politics and civil rights, and her work’s lasting impact.

Video

Henri Christophe, a Black man, in military uniform (blue double-breasted jacket with tails, white shirt, white pants, yellow boots), holding a sabre and dark hat in his right hand with his left in his jacket pocket.

The First and Last King of Haiti

with Marlene L. Daut

Explore the life, career, and brief reign of Henri Christophe.

Video

A green book cover with gold text reading "Harriet, the Moses of Her People"

Harriet, the Moses of Her People

1886

Read an authorized description of Tubman’s escape written by a White woman who had interviewed Tubman.

Primary Source

Title page of The Refugee: or the Narrative of Fugitive Slaves in Canada

Harriet Tubman’s reflection in The Refugee

1856

Read Tubman’s memories of enslavement and freedom in her own words.

Primary Source

Fannie Lou Hamer, a Black woman, speaking while wearing a floral-patterned dress.

Black Women’s Leadership and Organizing in the Civil Rights Movement

by Keisha N. Blain

Explore the civil rights leadership of JoAnn Robinson, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Essay

An engraving of a bust of a bearded Black man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and dark bow tie, in three-quarter view looking toward the left

“An Address to the Slaves of the United States”

1843

Explore this speech, rejected by the National Colored Convention.

Primary Source

Color print of a Black Union soldier in uniform (blue wide brimmed hat with an emblem, blue double-breasted coat with a black belt and gold US belt buckle and red sashes, blue pants, black shoes), holding a sword in his right hand and its sheath in his left; a large American flag flies over his head and there are military tents and a Black soldier in the background.

Martin R. Delany on Emigration

1852

Learn more about the many emigration and colonization pathways for formerly enslaved people.

Primary Source

A handwritten letter in cursive

An Account of the Stono Rebellion

1739

Explore James Oglethorpe’s account of the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina.

Primary Source

Cover of the 1830 pamphlet edition of Walker's Appeal ... to the Colored Citizens of the World printed in Boston

“Walker’s Appeal”

1829

Black abolitionist David Walker wrote a powerful pamphlet on the effects of enslavement on African Americans and what enslaved people should do to escape.

Primary Source

A yellowed four-fold pamphlet featuring the photograph (at top left) of Stanley Dones, a Black man wearing a dark jacket, white shirt, and dark tie, placing his right hand upon his chin.

Black Land Ownership in the Jim Crow Era

with Alison Rose Jefferson and Sandra Trenholm

Explore the history of the Black-owned Eureka Villa housing development in 1920s California.

Video