AP African American Studies Guide

  • AP African American Studies Guide

    Begin your journey through African American Studies by exploring primary sources, essays, and videos, organized by course unit.

     

    Click the play button to watch a short video demonstrating how to use the AP African American Studies Guide.

     

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    Practice Questions
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  • African American Studies: History in Context

    Join the Gilder Lehrman Institute and lead scholar Keisha N. Blain (Brown University) for a Teacher Seminar Online the week of August 3. This seminar examines some of the major themes in African American and African diasporic experiences over a period of several hundred years.

    Image: A photograph of Marcus Garvey by an unidentified photographer, August 5, 1924 (George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress)

    Learn more and register
    A black-and-white photograph of Marcus Garvey, a Black man wearing a dark suit, light-colored vest, white shirt, and dark tie, sitting in a wooden chair next to a desk filled with papers, holding a handkerchief in his right hand and a gavel in his left.

    • For Teachers

    • 15 PD Credits

    Unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora


    Exam Weight: 20-25%
    Suggested Pacing: 18 class periods

    The cover of a conference program of green text on a black background reading [diagonally] "Black Studies: Paradox with a Promise" at left, and a large green question mark with "Who," "Where," "When," and "How" written in the mark.

    Prologue: What Is African American Studies?

    In this initial topic, develop an understanding of the features that characterize African American Studies, along with how the field originated and evolved.

    • Topic 1.1
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    Introduction to the African Continent

    Understand the varied landscape and ancient history of the African continent.

    • Topics 1.2–1.4
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    West Africa

    Study the impact of the Sudanic empires and the education and religious practices in West and West Central Africa.

    • Topics 1.5–1.7
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    Southern, Central, and East Africa

    These topics cover the history of the kingdoms of Zimbabwe, Kongo, Benin, and Ndongo, along with the migration of Africans to Europe and vice versa before the transatlantic slave trade.

    • Topics 1.8–1.11
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    Unit 2: Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance


    Exam Weight: 30-35%
    Suggested Pacing: 39 class periods

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    Origins of Enslavement

    This section covers the origins and impact of, and early resistance to, the transatlantic slave trade.

    • Topic 2.1−2.8
    A Black Haitian general (wearing a pointed and feathered hat, dark coat with tails and epaulets, white pants, and dark boots) holding a book next to other troops, as a priest in formal robes and holding a staff looks above toward an image of God.

    Resistance and Revolt

    This section covers the cultural, political, and militant avenues for resistance to the system of slavery across the Americas.

    • Topics 2.9−2.15
    A color print with a row of portraits of five White and Black men (abolitionists in Brazil), below a portrait of Princess Isabel (wearing a blue dress with a white frill) and four shirtless Black men dancing next to a pole as a Black woman carrying a baby and wearing a pink dress looks on.

    Diasporic and Indigenous Connections

    This section covers slavery and freedom in Brazil and Indigenous territory.

    • Topics 2.16−2.17
    An engraving of a white-haired Frederick Douglass standing at a desk, wearing a dark jacket and waistcoat, dark bow tie, and white shirt and pants, shaking the hand of another Black man as other people wait to greet him at left

    Organizing for Freedom

    This section covers political thought, creativity, and action to dismantle the system of slavery in the United States before the American Civil War.

    • Topics 2.18−2.22
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    The Civil War

    Explore how enslaved and free African American men and women contributed to the United States Civil War and the official end to legal enslavement in the United States.

    • Topics 2.23−2.24
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    Unit 3: The Practice of Freedom


    Exam Weight: 20-25%
    Suggested Pacing: 28 class periods

    Illustration from 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly showing an African American man voting for the first time

    Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Nadir

    This section covers the sixty years following the United States Civil War, a period of both growth and diminution of rights for African Americans.

    • Topics 3.1–3.6
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    Black Organizing in the Early Twentieth Century

    Explore the development of organizations, institutions, artistic styles, and philosophical theories in the Jim Crow era.

    • Topics 3.7–3.15
    A black-and-white photograph of Marcus Garvey, a Black man wearing a dark suit, light-colored vest, white shirt, and dark tie, sitting in a wooden chair next to a desk filled with papers, holding a handkerchief in his right hand and a gavel in his left.

    Twentieth-Century Black Migration

    Learn more about waves of migration from the US South to the North and West, along with immigration from the Caribbean to the US and the "Back to Africa" ideology espoused by Marcus Garvey.

    • Topics 3.16–3.18

    Unit 4: Movements and Debates


    Exam Weight: 20-25%
    Suggested Pacing: 30 class periods

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    Anticolonialism and Transatlantic Black Political Thought

    Learn more about the Negrismo and Négritude movements and transnational Black anticolonial solidarity in the twentieth century.

    • Topics 4.1–4.2
    A group of Black and White students carrying signs while walking across the Brooklyn Bridge; signs have slogans like "Equal Educational Opportunities Now" and "Jim Crow Can't Teach Democracy."

    Black Organizing in the Twentieth Century

    This section covers the origins and evolution of the modern Civil Rights Movement and the many issues of discrimination and segregation civil rights activists worked to dismantle during this period.

    • Topics 4.3–4.7
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    Black Power in Politics and Culture

    Explore the intertwining of politics, music, literature, visual art, and philosophical theory in the twentieth century.

    • Topics 4.8–4.14
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    Business and Culture in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

    This final section of the course examines African Americans in politics, the performing arts, sports, and sciences, while also exploring contemporary demography and Afrofuturism.

    • Topics 4.15–4.21
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    Practice Multiple-Choice Questions

    Prepare for the official AP African American Studies exam with dozens of multiple-choice questions developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

    Test Your Knowledge
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    A Note on Language and Primary Sources in the Guide

    Language and images presented in some historical documents may include incorrect and harmful stereotypes based on race, sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity and/or culture.

    Resource Library

    Search through all the guide’s resources across all units and themes.

    Explore All Resources
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