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

A painting depicting a lighter-skinned woman (at left), wearing a white headscarf, blouse, and red skirt, holding a basket of a golden or yellow produce in her left hand and a platter of a red produce in her right hand. A darker-skinned woman (at right) wearing a white headscarf, blouse, and blue jacket stands behind her, her left hand on the other woman's left arm.

Recovering Voices of the Enslaved in Colonial America

by Sophie White

Explore the broader, less explored history of slave narratives in French Louisiana.

Essay

A drawing of an older Black man with gray hair, a black coat and vest, and white collared shirt.

Mutual Assistance: Building Black Community Life in Freedom

by Lois E. Horton

Take a closer look at the history of mutual aid society and their activity in Free Black communities.

Essay

Etching of Rev. Richard Allen, wearing a jacket and white shirt and looking directly ahead.

Richard Allen, Jarena Lee, and the Second Great Awakening

by Margaret Washington

Read about the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Essay

The title page from volume 1 of Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography, The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano, published in New York in 1791

Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, a Self-Made Man

by Vincent Carretta

Explore Equiano’s life story and the influence of his autobiography on the abolitionist movement.

Essay

Phillis Wheatley, a “Genius in Bondage”

by Vincent Carretta

Explore the life, career, and legacy of the poet who was the first person of sub-Saharan African descent to publish a book.

Essay

A map of the continent of Africa from 1770 shows regions, towns, rivers, and lakes.

The Development of Slavery in the Early Modern Atlantic World

by Michael Guasco

Learn about global systems of slavery in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.

Essay

Scan of the front page of the Negro Heroes comic book, featuring a large illustration of Jackie Robinson wearing a Dodgers jersey and catching a baseball.

Jackie Robinson

with Jason Butler, Taína Quiñones, and Sandra Trenholm

Explore a comic book about Jackie Robinson’s rookie year and letters written by Richard Nixon and Robert Kennedy to Jackie Robinson about the Civil Rights Movement.

Video

The Life and Work of Phillis Wheatley

with Krystal Mackie, Jeanette Providence, and Sandra Trenholm

Discover the eighteenth-century poet who was enslaved, became free, and built a lasting legacy.

Video

Scan of the first page of the report titled "Voting Restrictions in the 13 Southern States", featuring a map of the United States with 13 Southern states highlighted in red.

Voting restrictions for African Americans

1944

Investigate a pamphlet that documented cases of voter suppression in southern states written by a group of southern editors and writers.

Primary Source

An engraving of Frederick Douglass as a young man, wearing a double-breasted jacket, vest or waistcoat, and scarf, looking fiercely into the camera

Activist for Equality: Frederick Douglass at 200

1808–1894

Explore Frederick Douglass’s life in bondage and freedom in this online exhibition.

Interactive

Three Black men sit along a wall. One holds a sign that reads "We march together/ Catholic, Jews, Protestant/ for dignity an brotherhood of all men under God now!"

“A Vote-less People Is a Hopeless People”: Lessons from Selma

by Robert A. Pratt

Learn about the history and legacy of the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Essay

A black-and-white photograph of a finely dressed, bearded, dark-haired Frederick Douglass looking sternly in three-quarter view

Douglass and the US Constitution: The Dred Scott Decision

by Randall Kennedy

Explore Frederick Douglass‘s response to the Dred Scott case.

Essay