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

Two African American men sitting in front of a tent, one with cigar and the other with a soup ladle.

African Americans and the Civil War

with Elizabeth R. Varon

Learn more about free and enslaved Africans’ contributions to the Union war effort.

Video

James Forten, Sailmaker

by Julie Winch

Read about James Forten, an African American craftsman and businessman in nineteenth-century Philadelphia who employed an integrated workforce.

Essay

Prince Demah’s name written on the wooden stretcher of a painting

Painting Independence in Boston: Prince Demah

by Jennifer Van Horn

Learn more about an enslaved artist during the American Revolution.

Essay

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

Portrait of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a young Black man, wearing a dark suit and tie and white shirt.

“The Colored Soldiers”

1895

This poem, featured in Dunbar's collection Majors and Minors, recalls the impact of Black service in the Civil War.

Primary Source

Harriet, the Moses of Her People

1886

Read an authorized description of Tubman’s escape written by a White woman who had interviewed Tubman.

Primary Source

Title page of The Refugee: or the Narrative of Fugitive Slaves in Canada

Harriet Tubman’s reflection in The Refugee

1856

Read Tubman’s memories of enslavement and freedom in her own words.

Primary Source

Black women in coats and sweaters dancing as a multiracial crowd looks on from the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (with the Museum's colonnade in the background).

Land of a Thousand Dances

by Lucy Sante

Explore the history, and memory, of Soul Train.

Essay

A color photograph of four people in a park: a Black woman wearing a black shirt and headband; a Black man wearing a white t-shirt, chain with large star, black undershirt, glasses, and backward black baseball cap; a Black man wearing a red polo shirt, black plastic-frame glasses, and a red New York Yankees cap; and a Black man with a black vest and t-shirt, two chains, sunglasses, and a black baseball cap.

Hip-Hop in Cedar Park

by NYC Parks

Hear from DJ Kool Herc and others as they remember the early days of hip-hop in the Bronx.

Video

Fannie Lou Hamer, a Black woman, speaking while wearing a floral-patterned dress.

Black Women’s Leadership and Organizing in the Civil Rights Movement

by Keisha N. Blain

Explore the civil rights leadership of JoAnn Robinson, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Essay

AP African American Studies Resource Library