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

The Roots in performance on stage at the House of Blues — band members include (left to right) a saxophonist, trumpeter, keyboardist, guitarist, vocalist (Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter, wearing a white shirt, jeans, sunglasses and a dark hat while holding a microphone), drummer (Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, behind the drum kit, wearing a black t-shirt), sousaphonist, and percussionist.

“Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”

2012

Watch a modern performance of a classic song from the Black Freedom struggle.

Video

Two water fountains: at left, a larger water fountain labeled "white" and a smaller fountain labeled "colored." The labels appear above the fountains.

Segregated Water Fountains

n.d.

See another example of how Jim Crow discrimination was made manifest in the built environment.

Primary Source

Three boys playing atop the roof of a blue car, in front of an apartment building with graffiti written on the ground floor.

The Influence of the 1960s and 1970s on Hip-Hop

with Jeff Chang

Explore the importance of place and community on the development and growth of hip-hop in its earliest days.

Video

John Lewis, a Black man, wearing a dark jacket and tie and white shirt, speaking in front of two microphones on a table.

“The Revolution Is at Hand”

1963

Read the draft of John Lewis’s original planned speech for the March on Washington.

Primary Source

A portrait of a Black man with long black hair wearing a white turban, white robe, and necklace.

Ayuba bin Suleiman Diallo to His Father

ca. 1733

Read a translation of the letter that helped to secure Diallo’s freedom from enslavement.

Primary Source

A cartoon of a young Black man, mouth open, holding copies of The Black Panther newspaper, with a rifle strapped to his back. The front page of the copy in his right hand reads "ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE."

The Black Arts Movement

by Yasmine Espert

Explore the origins, evolution, and key players and works of the Black Arts Movement.

Essay

Five portraits of 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 wearing a pink dress looks on.

Slavery and Freedom in Brazil

by Keila Grinberg

Explore the pervasive impact of slavery in Brazil, and the long fight to abolish the system of enslavement.

Essay

Seated, from left to right, a Black man wearing a white shirt, kente cloth robe, and glasses; a Black woman wearing a white shirt; Pat Nixon, a White woman, wearing a light-colored dress with a white collar and a white hat; Richard Nixon, a White man, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie; and K.A. Gbedeman, a Black man, wearing a light-colored shirt and kente cloth robe.

“M. L. King Meets Nixon in Ghana”

1957

Read this piece from the Pittsburgh Courier that connects the Black Freedom struggles in Ghana and the US.

Primary Source

A five-piece mural made out of steel grates of a person working in a field.

“Urban Garden Rail”

by Saya Woolfalk

Explore responses to food access issues in segregated communities through this work of art.

Work of Art

A Black man wearing a tan sweater and white pants in a power wheelchair, talking to a white man in a white hat, white shirt, jean shorts, white socks, and black boots, as another white man in a yellow shirt, khaki shorts, white socks, and sneakers looks on.

Both Black and Disabled: Intersectional Experiences

by Jenifer L. Barclay

Explore the history of stigmatization of, and resiliency among, Black disabled people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Essay

The Freedmen’s Bureau and African American Families

by Justene Hill Edwards

Understand the roles the Freedmen’s Bureau played in supporting African American families and communities.

Essay

Nichelle Nichols, a Black woman with white hair, wearing a black shirt, beaded necklace, and white round earrings. She is holding a small LEGO character of an astronaut in a white spacewalking suit, next to a large gold and blue ring on her finger.

“Nichelle Nichols: Woman on a NASA Mission”

by National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Explore Nichols’s role in diversifying the space shuttle program.

Video