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

Black men in dark suits and ties (some neckties, some bowties) holding bundled stacks of newspapers on the steps of a brick building topped with a crescent and the words "Muhammad's Temple No. 2."

“Muhammad Speaks” Newspaper Salesmen

1965

View a photograph of the Nation of Islam's official newspaper being prepared for sale.

Primary Source

Mary Jackson, a bespectacled Black woman wearing a white lab coat over a dark sweater, white shirt, and brooch, writing on a clipboard as engineering instruments surround her.

Mary Jackson at Work

1977

View an image of the first Black woman to be an engineer at NASA.

Primary Source

Mae Jemison, a Black woman, wearing an astronaut uniform (yellow shirt with mission patch, blue cargo pants, grey slippers) aboard the Space Shuttle. She is floating in zero gravity, surrounded by experimental stations, with a video camera floating to her left.

Mae Jemison Works at Zero Gravity

1992

Get a glimpse of the first Black woman in space at work aboard the space shuttle.

Primary Source

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. smiling and talking with each other while a police escort stands near.

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

1964

View a photograph of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X’s only meeting.

Primary Source

From left to right: a Black woman wearing a white vest and plaid pants kneeling with head raised; John Lewis, a Black man wearing a white button-down shirt, black pants, and black shoes, kneeling with head bowed while holding a notepad in his left hand; a Black girl wearing a white shirt, shorts, and shoes, kneeling with head bowed; and a Black man wearing a white button-down shirt, black pants, and black shoes, kneeling with head bowed. All are in front of a brick building with ground-floor windows.

John Lewis at a Prayer Demonstration

1962

View a photograph of members of the SNCC kneeling in prayer in Cairo, Illinois.

Primary Source

Medal podium at the 1968 Olympic Games. Tommie Smith (the gold medalist, center), a Black man, is wearing a dark blue Team USA jacket (with red and white trim), the gold medal around his neck, and his right hand in a Black Power salute with a black glove on his clenched right fist. John Carlos (bronze medalist, right), a Black man, is also wearing a Team USA uniform (with an unzipped jacket) and mirrors the salute with his left hand. Peter Norman (left), a white man, is wearing a green jacket.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos during XIX Summer Olympics

1968

View a key example of sports as a platform for the Black freedom struggle.

Primary Source

Elijah Muhammad, a Black man wearing a beret, barely visible above a lectern and a bank of microphones. He is flanked on his stage by two Black men on his right (one in a dark suit, white shirt, and dark bowtie, and another in a Fruit of Islam uniform of beret, dark jacket, and white shirt) and a Black woman (in a white robe and headwear) and Black man (in a dark suit, white shirt, and dark necktie), and behind him are several Black men in dark suits and ties and Black women in white robes and headwear.

Elijah Muhammad Addressing Black Muslims

1966

View Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, speaking to congregants.

Primary Source

A button reading "Black is Beautiful," with black text on a white background.

“Kathleen Cleaver on Natural Hair”

1968

Learn more about this element of Afrocentric aesthetics and the embrace of “Black is Beautiful.”

Video

An open-topped car with four passengers in a parade. The driver is a Black man with a dark jacket, white shirt, dark tie, and dark driver's cap. In the back seat, from left to right, is a Black man in a military uniform; a Black man wearing academic regalia; Marcus Garvey, a Black man, wearing a military uniform and holding a sword. Next to the car is a Black man wearing a dark jacket, white shirt, and striped tie. In the background are apartment buildings, where Black people are looking on at the parade.

Marcus Garvey in Harlem

1924

View another photograph of Garvey and an entourage, as captured by James Van Der Zee.

Primary Source

A photograph of a bronze cast sculpture titled "Emancipation." The sculpture depicts male and female figures emerging from the tree of knowledge at the center.

Shaping the Public Imagination: The Sculpture of Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

by Chenoa Baker

Read about the life and art of Fuller and some of her more famous pieces.

Essay

Laura Wheeler Waring, a Black woman, wearing an artist's smock and painting a portrait of a man with her right hand while holding a palette in her left. On the walls behind her are other portraits and artwork.

Laura Wheeler Waring: A Luminous Palette

by Cherene Sherrard-Johnson

Learn more about Laura Wheeler Waring’s portraiture, highlighting her luminous palette and contributions to African American art history.

Essay

Black-and-white photograph of an art gallery, with three men standing in the gallery: a white man in his Coast Guard captain uniform of dark double-breasted coat, white shirt, dark tie, and white cap with a dark brim); at center, a white man in a dark suit, light colored shirt, and dark tie; and at right, a Black man in his Coast Guard sailor uniform of dark shirt (with gold bands on the sleeves) and pants, light-colored scarf, and dark beret.

The Cubist Collage Aesthetic and the Historical Narratives of Jacob Lawrence

by Patricia Hills

Read more about Jacob Lawrence’s use of cubist collage aesthetics to depict historical narratives in his artwork.

Essay