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

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

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

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

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

Black and white photo of a middle-aged Black woman with shoulder length hair and wearing a large white flower pin being sworn in as the borough president of Manhattan.

Constance Baker Motley: A Trailblazer in the Legal Profession

by Gary L. Ford, Jr.

Read about the life and work of Constance Baker Motley, the only woman who argued desegregation cases in courts in the racially segregated South during the Civil Rights Movement from 1946 to 1964.

Essay

The Heart and Soul of Fannie Lou Hamer

by Earnest N. Bracey

Read about the life and advocacy about Civil Rights leader and National Women’s Political Caucus cofounder Fannie Lou Hamer.

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

Read an overview of the landmark moments of the Civil Rights Movement in the twentieth century.

Ten Ways to Teach Rosa Parks

by Jeanne Theoharis and Say Burgin

Read about ten common misconceptions about Civil Rights legend Rosa Parks.

Essay

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. smiling and talking with each other while a police escort stands near.

The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

with Peniel Joseph

Dive into the lives and work of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Video

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America

with Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Explore the history of race, crime, and modern US history.

Video

Image of the National Museum of African American History and Culture with the Washington Monument in the distance.

Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture

with Lonnie Bunch

Learn about the significance and creation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Video