AP African American Studies Guide

Unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora

Exam Weight: 20-25%
Suggested Pacing: 18 class periods

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.

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.

Topic 1.1

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Introduction to the African Continent

Understand the varied landscape and ancient history of the African continent.

Topics 1.2–1.4

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West Africa

Study the impact of the Sudanic empires and the education and religious practices in West and West Central Africa.

Topics 1.5–1.7

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Southern, Central, and East Africa

These topics cover the history of the kingdoms of Zimbabwe, Kongo, Benin, and Ndongo, along with the migration of Africans to Europe and vice versa before the transatlantic slave trade.

Topics 1.8–1.11

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Unit 2: Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance

Exam Weight: 30-35%
Suggested Pacing: 39 class periods

Origins of Enslavement

This section covers the origins and impact of, and early resistance to, the transatlantic slave trade.

Topic 2.1−2.8

A Black Haitian general (wearing a pointed and feathered hat, dark coat with tails and epaulets, white pants, and dark boots) holding a book next to other troops, as a priest in formal robes and holding a staff looks above toward an image of God.

Resistance and Revolt

This section covers the cultural, political, and militant avenues for resistance to the system of slavery across the Americas.

Topics 2.9−2.15

A color print with a row of portraits of five White and Black men (abolitionists in Brazil), below a portrait of Princess Isabel (wearing a blue dress with a white frill) and four shirtless Black men dancing next to a pole as a Black woman carrying a baby and wearing a pink dress looks on.

Diasporic and Indigenous Connections

This section covers slavery and freedom in Brazil and Indigenous territory.

Topics 2.16−2.17

An engraving of a white-haired Frederick Douglass standing at a desk, wearing a dark jacket and waistcoat, dark bow tie, and white shirt and pants, shaking the hand of another Black man as other people wait to greet him at left

Organizing for Freedom

This section covers political thought, creativity, and action to dismantle the system of slavery in the United States before the American Civil War.

Topics 2.18−2.22

A painting of a bearded Black soldier with a slight smile on his face, wearing a blue Union Army uniform (jacket, coat, pants, and hat), holding a rifle on his right shoulder with a slight smile on his face.

The Civil War

Explore how enslaved and free African American men and women contributed to the United States Civil War and the official end to legal enslavement in the United States.

Topics 2.23−2.24

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Unit 3: The Practice of Freedom

Exam Weight: 20-25%
Suggested Pacing: 28 class periods

Illustration from 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly showing an African American man voting for the first time

Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Nadir

This section covers the sixty years following the United States Civil War, a period of both growth and diminution of rights for African Americans.

Topics 3.1–3.6

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Black Organizing in the Early Twentieth Century

Explore the development of organizations, institutions, artistic styles, and philosophical theories in the Jim Crow era.

Topics 3.7–3.15

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.

Twentieth-Century Black Migration

Learn more about waves of migration from the US South to the North and West, along with immigration from the Caribbean to the US and the "Back to Africa" ideology espoused by Marcus Garvey.

Topics 3.16–3.18

Unit 4: Movements and Debates

Exam Weight: 20-25%
Suggested Pacing: 30 class periods

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Anticolonialism and Transatlantic Black Political Thought

Learn more about the Negrismo and Négritude movements and transnational Black anticolonial solidarity in the twentieth century.

Topics 4.1–4.2

A group of Black and White students carrying signs while walking across the Brooklyn Bridge; signs have slogans like "Equal Educational Opportunities Now" and "Jim Crow Can't Teach Democracy."

Black Organizing in the Twentieth Century

This section covers the origins and evolution of the modern Civil Rights Movement and the many issues of discrimination and segregation civil rights activists worked to dismantle during this period.

Topics 4.3–4.7

A mosaic featuring a black-and-white portrait of Audre Lorde surrounded by bursts of gold, white, and black tiles.

Black Power in Politics and Culture

Explore the intertwining of politics, music, literature, visual art, and philosophical theory in the twentieth century.

Topics 4.8–4.14

Mae Jemison, a Black woman, wearing an astronaut's uniform (yellow shirt with mission patch, blue cargo pants, grey slippers) aboard the space shuttle. She is floating in zero gravity surrounded by science stations, with a video camera floating to her left.

Business and Culture in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

This final section of the course examines African Americans in politics, the performing arts, sports, and sciences, while also exploring contemporary demography and Afrofuturism.

Topics 4.15–4.21

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A Note on Language and Primary Sources in the Guide

Language and images presented in some historical documents may include incorrect and harmful stereotypes based on race, sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity and/or culture.

Resource Library

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