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

Charles Mingus, a Black man wearing a white or light-colored turtleneck and a dark vest, playing an upright bass.

“Original Faubus Fables”

1960

Hear Charles Mingus's musical retort to Arkansas Governor and segregationist Orval Faubus.

Video

Oil painting of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman. She is smiling facing forward with her hands clasped in front of her body, holding a black book with gold-colored text [HOLY BIBLE]. Lacks is wearing a red dress with a white flower pattern and small belt.

“Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine”

2017

View Kadir Nelson’s portrait and tribute to Henrietta Lacks.

Primary Source

From left to right, a seated Black girl wearing a white coat and earrings; a standing Black boy wearing a dark jacket, white shirt, and thin dark tie; a seated Black woman, wearing a dark jacket over a light colored blouse and a pearl necklace; and a standing Black man, wearing a blazer emblazoned with a crest.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

1954

Read the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court in this foundational case.

Primary Source

Barbara Smith, a Black woman, wearing a polka dot (white dots on black fabric) shirt and speaking into a lectern microphone. In her left hand, she is holding a pamphlet entitled "United States of All."

“The Combahee River Collective Statement”

1977

Read this foundational document of Black feminism.

Primary Source

Gwendolyn Brooks, a bespectacled Black woman, wearing a brown and magenta floral shirt and a brown head cover.

“We’re the Only Colored People Here”

1945

Read a short story that would grow into Gwendolyn Brooks’s novel Maud Martha (1953).

Primary Source

A typed title page of a book.

Establishing the Freedmen's Bureau

1865

Read the legislation creating the "bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands" amid the US Civil War.

Primary Source

Justices of the Supreme Court, all white men, in black robes, five seated, and four standing.

Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Ruling

1896

Read the opinion of the court leading to the legal doctrine of separate but equal.

Primary Source

A poster with a drawing of a Black aviator wearing a brown uniform and gray flight vest. Above the aviator is the phrase "Keep us flying!" in italics. Below is "BUY WAR BONDS" in a blue box.

“Should I Sacrifice to Live ‘Half-American?’”

1942

Read the letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier that spawned the Double V movement.

Primary Source

Masthead of the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper.

Clarissa Reed Searches for Her Family

1883

Read a formerly enslaved woman’s plea for information about her lost parents and siblings.

Primary Source

Cover of Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, featuring a Black woman wearing a brown hat (extending down her neckline) and large gold hoop earrings encircled in a black circle with a peach background.

“Restricted West Indian Immigration and the American Negro”

1924

Read this piece on the impact of the Immigration Act of 1924 on Afro-Caribbean migration to the US.

Primary Source

Black and white photograph of a large group of people, mostly women, posed around the exterior of a large Italianate style mansion. The figures are arranged on the building's multi-level balconies, stairs, and around a rectangular pool on the ground level. The photograph is mounted on a piece of gray cardboard that has sustained loss at the top right and bottom right corners. In the bottom right corner is black script that is partially missing.

Convention of Madam C. J. Walker Agents

1924

View an example of the extent and success of Madam C. J. Walker’s business empire through this photograph.

Primary Source

President Barack Obama, standing wearing a black suit, white shirt, and striped gray and white tie, awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Maya Angelou, seated wearing a black dress, sparkly necklace and earrings, and sunglasses, as other honorees (including Sylvia Mendez) sit and look on.

Maya Angelou at the Library of Congress

1984

Listen to Maya Angelou read from her work, including her poem “Still I Rise,” and Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask.”