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History and Social SciencesAfrican American Studies

AP African American Studies

Study African American experiences across history, literature, the arts, geography, science, law, and the wider African diaspora through sustained work with primary and secondary sources.

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Unit 1Origins of the African Diaspora (~900 BCE–16th century)11 topics

Build the geographic, cultural, political, and intellectual foundations needed to understand Africa’s varied societies and the formation of a global African diaspora.

  1. 1.1What Is African American Studies?
  2. 1.2The African Continent: A Varied Landscape
  3. 1.3Population Growth and Ethnolinguistic Diversity
  4. 1.4Africa’s Ancient Societies
  5. 1.5The Sudanic Empires: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai
  6. 1.6Learning Traditions
  7. 1.7Indigenous Cosmologies and Religious Syncretism
  8. 1.8Culture and Trade in Southern and East Africa
  9. 1.9West Central Africa: The Kingdom of Kongo
  10. 1.10Kinship and Political Leadership
  11. 1.11Global Africans

Unit 2Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance (16th century–1865)24 topics

Trace how enslavement, law, culture, community building, and many forms of Black resistance shaped the Americas through the Civil War.

  1. 2.1African Explorers in the Americas
  2. 2.2Departure Zones in Africa and the Slave Trade to the United States
  3. 2.3Capture and the Impact of the Slave Trade on West African Societies
  4. 2.4African Resistance on Slave Ships and the Antislavery Movement
  5. 2.5Slave Auctions and the Domestic Slave Trade
  6. 2.6Labor, Culture, and Economy
  7. 2.7Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases
  8. 2.8The Social Construction of Race and the Reproduction of Status
  9. 2.9Creating African American Culture
  10. 2.10Black Pride, Identity, and the Question of Naming
  11. 2.11The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose
  12. 2.12Legacies of the Haitian Revolution
  13. 2.13Resistance and Revolts in the United States
  14. 2.14Black Organizing in the North: Freedom, Women’s Rights, and Education
  15. 2.15Maroon Societies and Autonomous Black Communities
  16. 2.16Diasporic Connections: Slavery and Freedom in Brazil
  17. 2.17African Americans in Indigenous Territory
  18. 2.18Debates About Emigration, Colonization, and Belonging in America
  19. 2.19Black Political Thought: Radical Resistance
  20. 2.20Race to the Promised Land: Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad
  21. 2.21Legacies of Resistance in African American Art and Photography
  22. 2.22Gender and Resistance in Slave Narratives
  23. 2.23The Civil War and Black Communities
  24. 2.24Freedom Days: Commemorating the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom

Unit 3The Practice of Freedom (1865–1940s)18 topics

Examine how African Americans defined and defended freedom after emancipation while building institutions, movements, art, scholarship, and new communities.

  1. 3.1The Reconstruction Amendments
  2. 3.2Social Life: Reuniting Black Families and the Freedmen’s Bureau
  3. 3.3Black Codes, Land, and Labor
  4. 3.4The Defeat of Reconstruction
  5. 3.5Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow Laws
  6. 3.6White Supremacist Violence and the Red Summer
  7. 3.7The Color Line and Double Consciousness in American Society
  8. 3.8Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women’s Rights and Leadership
  9. 3.9Black Organizations and Institutions
  10. 3.10HBCUs, Black Greek Letter Organizations, and Black Education
  11. 3.11The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
  12. 3.12Photography and Social Change
  13. 3.13Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry
  14. 3.14Symphony in Black: Black Performance in Music, Theater, and Film
  15. 3.15Black History Education and African American Studies
  16. 3.16The Great Migration
  17. 3.17Afro-Caribbean Migration
  18. 3.18The Universal Negro Improvement Association

Unit 4Movements and Debates (1940s–2000s)21 topics

Connect anticolonial thought, civil rights and Black Power organizing, cultural movements, public policy, and contemporary debates about Black identity and futures.

  1. 4.1The Négritude and Negrismo Movements
  2. 4.2Anticolonialism and Black Political Thought
  3. 4.3African Americans and the Second World War: The Double V Campaign and the G.I. Bill
  4. 4.4Discrimination, Segregation, and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
  5. 4.5Redlining and Housing Discrimination
  6. 4.6Major Civil Rights Organizations
  7. 4.7Black Women’s Leadership and Grassroots Organizing in the Civil Rights Movement
  8. 4.8The Arts, Music, and Politics of Freedom
  9. 4.9Black Religious Nationalism and the Black Power Movement
  10. 4.10The Black Arts Movement
  11. 4.11The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
  12. 4.12Black Is Beautiful and Afrocentricity
  13. 4.13The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality
  14. 4.14Interlocking Systems of Oppression
  15. 4.15Economic Growth and Black Political Representation
  16. 4.16Demographic and Religious Diversity in Contemporary Black Communities
  17. 4.17The Evolution of African American Music: From Spirituals to Hip-Hop
  18. 4.18Black Life in Theater, TV, and Film
  19. 4.19African Americans and Sports
  20. 4.20Science, Medicine, and Technology in Black Communities
  21. 4.21Black Studies, Black Futures, and Afrofuturism

PROJECTIndividual Student Project4 topics

Plan the required three-week inquiry by defining a research topic and line of inquiry, analyzing authentic multidisciplinary sources, developing and delivering a presentation, and preparing for the oral defense and exam-day validation question.

  1. STS-ISP1Define the project topic and line of inquiry
  2. STS-ISP2Research and analyze authentic multidisciplinary sources
  3. STS-ISP3Develop and deliver the project presentation
  4. STS-ISP4Prepare for the oral defense and exam-day validation question