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

Broadside with text of varying sizes. On the top it reads in all capital letters, "MEN OF COLOR; TO ARMS! TO ARMS!; NOW OR NEVER."

Generations in Captivity: Slavery in America

with Ira Berlin

Understand how the interplay of regional and generational factors shaped the development of slavery in the antebellum United States.

Video

Black soldiers in dark Union Army uniforms, jackets with sashes and epaulets, and caps with a horn embroidered on the bill, looking at the camera while holding their rifles.

The Men of Company E

with Matthew Pinsker

Explore different points of view of Black soldiers in a postwar photograph.

Video

The front cover of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, featuring a small photorealistic illustration of Eliza and Lizzie Scott in dresses holding hands above two larger illustrations of Dred and Harriet Scott, pictured separately

Dred and Harriet Scott: A Family Story of Slavery and Freedom

with Matthew Pinsker

Learn about the family that brought the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) case to the Supreme Court.

Video

Scan of the US Constitution, printed in September 1787.

Race and the American Constitution: A Struggle Toward National Ideals

by James Oliver Horton

Read how both pro-slavery and anti-slavery movements used the Constitution to promote their beliefs.

Essay

An engraving shows four people doing various tasks with harvested tobacco in an open shed, including pulling pieces of the leaves apart, and winding rope.

The Origins of Slavery

by Ira Berlin

Gain a greater understanding of the slave trade and the forced migration and diaspora of Africans.

Essay

A smiling white-haired Black woman in a dark dress sitting with her hands clasped in her lap in an elaborately carved high-backed wooden chair

The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source

by David W. Blight

Examine narratives such as Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in this essay.

Essay

A photograph of a Black Civil War Union soldier in uniform in a rounded rectangular frame.

African Americans and Emancipation

by Manisha Sinha

Explore the role of military service during the Civil War on emancipation and abolition.

Essay

A painting depicting a lighter-skinned woman (at left), wearing a white headscarf, blouse, and red skirt, holding a basket of a golden or yellow produce in her left hand and a platter of a red produce in her right hand. A darker-skinned woman (at right) wearing a white headscarf, blouse, and blue jacket stands behind her, her left hand on the other woman's left arm.

Recovering Voices of the Enslaved in Colonial America

by Sophie White

Explore the broader, less explored history of slave narratives in French Louisiana.

Essay

A drawing of an older Black man with gray hair, a black coat and vest, and white collared shirt.

Mutual Assistance: Building Black Community Life in Freedom

by Lois E. Horton

Take a closer look at the history of mutual aid society and their activity in Free Black communities.

Essay

Etching of Rev. Richard Allen, wearing a jacket and white shirt and looking directly ahead.

Richard Allen, Jarena Lee, and the Second Great Awakening

by Margaret Washington

Read about the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Essay

The title page from volume 1 of Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography, The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano, published in New York in 1791

Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, a Self-Made Man

by Vincent Carretta

Explore Equiano’s life story and the influence of his autobiography on the abolitionist movement.

Essay

Phillis Wheatley, a “Genius in Bondage”

by Vincent Carretta

Explore the life, career, and legacy of the poet who was the first person of sub-Saharan African descent to publish a book.

Essay