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

Wooden staff in the form of a kneeling female figure holding a stylized snake in an inverted U over her head, topped by a pair of opposing triangles in a bowtie or double-ax form. Female figure has white beads around her neck and staff is pigmented in red, blue, and white.

Yoruba osé Ṣàngó

Mid-20th Century

Take a closer look at an example of syncretic cosmologies.

Primary Source

Black and white portrait of Booker T. Washington, three-quarter length, seated, facing front

Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington: A Little-known Encounter

by Adele Alexander

Learn the critical differences in attitude and approach taken by Douglass and Washington, and their 1892 encounter at the Tuskegee Institute.

Essay

The image is a sepia-toned portrait of Ida B. Wells, the African American journalist, activist, and anti-lynching crusader. She is shown from the chest up, wearing a high-collared, intricately embroidered lace dress with ruffled details. Her hair is styled in an elegant updo, and she has a composed, determined expression while gazing slightly to the side. The soft lighting and classic photographic style suggest it was taken in the late 19th or early 20th century.

The Persistence of Ida B. Wells: Reform Leader and Civil Rights Activist

by Kristina DuRocher

Learn more about Wells’s fight against lynching, her journalism, and her leadership in the civil rights movement.

Essay

Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance

with Mia Bay

Learn more about the impact of Homer Plessy on segregation and discrimination of railroad travel.

Video

Photograph of Chad Williams, a Black man, in a blue suit with a light blue button-down shirt.

The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War

with Chad Williams

Learn about W.E.B. Du Bois and his thoughts on the participation of Black Americans in the First World War.

Video

Bert Williams, a Black man, wearing a black coat and white collar.

Representation on the Stage, Screen, and Airwaves

by Kenya Davis-Hayes

Explore the history of Black performance from Reconstruction through the 1960s.

Essay

A black-and-white photograph of a young Black girl wearing a white dress, dark sweater, and dark socks and shoes, jumping rope as other Black children look on.

The Great Migration and the Making of Modern America

by Davarian L. Baldwin

Explore the impact of the “Exodus from Dixie.”

Essay

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

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

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

The Second Great Migration

by Michael Siegel and Rutgers Cartography

Visualize the second wave of the Great Migration on this map.

Thematic Map

A black and white photograph of Nannie Helen Burroughs, a young Black woman, shown seated from the waist up, wearing a dark hat with a white feather and a white blouse

“How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping”

1900

Read Nannie Helen Burroughs’s address casting light on the importance of women organizing in Black institutions.

Primary Source

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.

Marcus Garvey at His Desk

1924

View this photograph of Marcus Garvey, the founder and leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

Primary Source