Prologue: What Is African American Studies? | APAAS | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Prologue: What Is African American Studies?

In this initial topic, develop an understanding of the features that characterize African American Studies, along with how the field originated and evolved.

1.1 Prologue: What Is African American Studies?

Image Source: Black Studies National Conference Program. Black Studies: Paradox with a Promise. University of North Carolina at Charlotte, March 18–21, 1975. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Topic 1.1

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 1.1.A

Describe the features that characterize African American Studies.

LO 1.1.B

Describe the developments that led to the incorporation of African American Studies into United States colleges and universities in the 1960s and 1970s.

LO 1.1.C

Explain how African American Studies enriches the study of early Africa and its relationship to communities of the African diaspora.

Essentials

Terms

African American Studies
Black freedom struggles
African diaspora
Black Power
Black Campus movement
Interdisciplinary analysis
Transatlantic slave trade

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

A Black man wearing a dark coat speaking into a bullhorn megaphone held in his left hand, while his right arm is outstretched with a clenched fist. A crowd looks on and raises their right fists in the air. There is a sign reading "Viva La Huelga" in the left midground.

Black Student Union Strike for Black Studies at San Francisco State College

1968

See the student protests that led to the first Black Studies department and gave rise to the field of African American studies.

Primary Source

A typed list of Black and Puerto Rican Studies courses for the Fall 1972 semester, pale blue ink on white copy paper

Schedule of Courses for Black and Puerto Rican Studies

1972

View one of Hunter College‘s earliest African American Studies course catalogs.

Primary Source

The cover of a conference program of green text on a black background reading [diagonally] "Black Studies: Paradox With a Promise" at left, and a large green question mark with "Who," "Where," "When," and "How" written in the mark. "Black Studies National Conference: Southeastern, U.S.A." at the top and "University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, N.C., March 18-21, 1975" at the bottom

First National Council for Black Studies Annual Conference

1975

Get a greater sense of questions and issues in the field of African American studies through this conference program.

Primary Source

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

A photocopied cover of a curriculum catalog. At right, a black panther pouncing below the text "Black Studies Curriculum."

Black Studies: Its Origin and Place in the Twenty-First Century

by Abul Pitre

Develop an understanding of the birth and evolution of African American Studies, Black Studies, and other adjacent fields.

Essay

Group of African Americans, marching near the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

History of Race Relations in America

with David Blight, Kellie Carter Jackson, and Manisha Sinha

Explore the importance of Black history and the history of race relations in America in this panel discussion.

Video

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Learn more about the origins of African American Studies through the fight for the first Black Studies department in 1968.