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

A watercolor showing enslaved people picking cotton with an overseer nearby

Painting of a Plantation

ca. 1860

Explore an artist’s depiction of enslavement.

Secondary Source

A Black man wearing a dark coat speaking into a bullhorn megaphone held in his left hand, while his right arm is outstretched with a clenched fist. A crowd looks on and raises their right fists in the air. There is a sign reading "Viva La Huelga" in the left midground.

Black Student Union Strike for Black Studies at San Francisco State College

1968

See the student protests that led to the first Black Studies department and gave rise to the field of African American studies.

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

A hand-colored lithograph showing enslaved Black men and women cut sugar cane and load the bundles or junks into a horse-drawn cart. A White man on a horse speaks to a Black overseer. Includes cutting bills or knives, coconut palms, and a windmill in the distance.

Sugar Cane Harvest, Antigua, West Indies

1823

View this depiction of enslavement in the Caribbean.

Primary Source

A typed list of Black and Puerto Rican Studies courses for the Fall 1972 semester, pale blue ink on white copy paper

Schedule of Courses for Black and Puerto Rican Studies

1972

View one of Hunter College‘s earliest African American Studies course catalogs.

Primary Source

An ivory and metal mask of a woman, with a tiara and necklace

Queen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba

16th Century

View a mask that was a symbol of the wealth of Benin in this period.

Primary Source

A port in a medieval city, with Black and White people on boats and walking about on land

“Chafariz d’El Rei” [The King’s Fountain]

ca. 1570–1580

Explore the role of Africans in Portugal in the sixteenth century through this painting and essay.

Work of Art

Stylized clay sculpture of an armored soldier on a horse

Mali Equestrian Figure

13th–15th Century

View this sculpture of a horseman with a quiver, an artifact of the Mali empire.

Primary Source

A wooden crucifix sculpture with three crosses stacked vertically, each with a Christlike crucified figure

Triple Crucifix

1500s–1800s

View this example of syncretic religious practice in the kingdom of Kongo.

Primary Source

Queen Nzinga, at right, wearing a gold crown, pink bandeau, pink, blue, and red skirt, and holding a multicolored bow and arrow, followed by an entourage of shirtless men and women.

Queen Nzinga with Military Entourage

1665–1668

View this depiction of Queen Nzinga (also spelled Njinga) from the viewpoint of an Italian missionary in Matamba.

Primary Source

Map of the United States with arrows noting migration corridors from the South to the Northeast, Midwest, and West.

The Great Migration, 1900–1929

by Michael Siegel and Rutgers Cartography

Explore the first wave of the Great Migration through this map.

Thematic Map