AP African American Studies | Calhoun TX Democrats

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Course list for AP African American Studies

The expunged writers and scholars include Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, a law professor at Columbia, which touts her work as “foundational in critical race theory”; Roderick Ferguson, a Yale professor who has written about queer social movements; and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author who has made the case for reparations for slavery. Gone, too, is bell hooks, the writer who shaped discussions about race, feminism and class.

But after seeing the framework on Wednesday, he faulted it for omitting conservative or independent Black thinkers like John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell and Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.

The writers Gwendolyn Brooks and Mari Evans, the curriculum says, “explore the lived experience of Black women and men and show how their race, gender and social class can affect how they are perceived, their roles and their economic opportunities.”The writers Gwendolyn Brooks and Mari Evans, the curriculum says, “explore the lived experience of Black women and men and show how their race, gender and social class can affect how they are perceived, their roles and their economic opportunities.”

https://www.theflstandard.com/content/files/2023/01/AP-African-American-Studies-Coursework.pdf

Original framework Feb 2022 (82 pages)

Unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora (5 weeks)

* Africa: First Look

* The Strength and Reach of West African Empires

* Intercultural Forces in African Kingdoms and City-States

* Gender, Community, and Knowledge Production

* Envisioning Early Africa in African American Studies

Weekly Instructional Focus: Africa First Look

Topic 1.1: Introduction to African American Studies and Interdisciplinarity

This topic introduces the interdisciplinary field of African American studies and invites students to explore multiple perspectives by examining works of art.

• Bisa Butler's / Go To Prepare a Place For You
contextualizes Harriet Tubman's legacy, emphasizes Black
women's beauty and strength, illustrates the link between faith
and leadership in Tubman's life, and draws connections between African Americans and Africa.
• Compare Butler's piece (2021) to the work that inspired it:
Benjamin F. Powelson's carte-de-visite portrait of Harriet Tubman (1868-1869).

Topic 1.2: Exploring Africa's Geographic Diversity

This topic explores the diversity of Africa's primary regions and climate zones using maps. Students can examine misconceptions through readings, such as the essay "How to Write About Africa" by Binyavanga Wainaina.

a Physical and political maps of Africa

􀀉 1.2.A.3 Binyavanga Wainaina's satirical essay "How to Write About Africa" critiques Western depictions of Africa that rely on negative stereotypes and oversimplify the continent's complexity, diversity, and centrality to humanity's past and present. The essay encourages the reader to develop a more complex understanding of Africa's 54 countries, including ongoing changes in the landscapes, cultures, and political formations within them.

Topic 1.3: Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Bantu Dispersals

This topic explores Bantu dispersals affected linguistic diversity across African regions. Students may investigate maps and music selections to examine this topic.

• Map of Bantu dispersals
􀀄 Miriam Makeba performing "Qongqothwane," a Xhosa wedding song
• Selection from "Dispersals and Genetic Adaptation of BantuSpeaking Populations in Africa and North America" (2017) by Etienne Patin et al.
Two important factors contributed to population growth among Bantu-speaking peoples in West Africa, triggering a series of migrations throughout the continent from 1500 BCE to 500 CE:
• Technological innovations (e.g., the development of iron tools and weapons)
• Agricultural innovations (e.g., cultivating bananas, yams, and cereals).
• 1.3.A.3 Bantu-speaking peoples' linguistic influences spread throughout the continent. Today, the Bantu linguistic family contains hundreds of languages that are spoken throughout West, Central, and Southern Africa (e.g., Xhosa, Swahili, Kikongo, Zulu). Western and Central African Bantu speakers also represent a large portion of the genetic ancestry of African Americans.

Topic 1.4: Geography, Climate, and the Emergence of Empires

This topic explores the influence of Africa's geography on settlement and trade encourages examination of African climate zone maps.
• Map of African climate zones

Weekly Instructional Focus: The Strength and Reach of West African Empires

Topic 1.5: The Sudanic Empires: Ghana

This topic explores the role of geography and the influence of Islam on ancient Ghana. Students may examine selections of historical texts describing Ghana's strength, such as Al-Bakri's Book of Routes and Realms (1098).

• Selection from Book of Routes and Realms (1068) by Abu Ubaydallah AI-Bakri
• Map of the Sudanic empires

Topic 1.6: The Sudanic Empires: Mali

This topic explores how Mali's geographic location and material wealth led to its rise to power and ability to eclipse ancient Ghana. Students may apply textual and visual analysis to works of art and primary source documents.

• Selection from The Rihla (1355) by lbn Battuta
• Images of Mali's terracotta horseman sculptures
• Selection from "Mansa Musa and Global Mali," a chapter in in Michael Gomez's African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa that contextualizes lbn Battuta's text

Catalan Atlas (1375), created by Abraham Cresque

Topics 1.7: The Sudanic Empires: Songhai

This topic explores how trade routes contributed to the rise and decline of the Songhai Empire using maps and primary source accounts.

• Selection from History and Description of Africa (1550) by Leo Africanus
• Map of the Sahelian/Sudanic empires

Weekly Instructional Focus: Intercultural Forces in African Kingdoms and City-States

Topic 1.8: East Africa: The Swahili Coast

This topic explores the geographic and cultural factors that contributed to the rise and fall of the Swahili Coast's citystates. Students may analyze primary source accounts to build their understanding.

• Selection from A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and
Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century ( 1514) by
Duarte Barbosa
• Map of Swahili Coast trade routes

"The Swahili Coast," a video clip (2:59) from the PBS series, Africa's Great Civilizations

Topic 1.9: Southern Africa: Great Zimbabwe
This topic explores the significance of Great Zimbabwe's stone architecture by inviting students to study images of the walls and stone enclosure.

• Images of Great Zimbabwe's walls and stone enclosures

"The City of Great Zimbabwe," a video clip (2:36) from the PBS series Africa's Great Civilizations

Topic 1.10: West-Central Africa: The Kingdom of Kongo

This topic explores the consequences of the Kingdom of Kongo's conversion to Christianity. Students may review primary source documents, such as letters, as well as artistic images.

Selection from a letter by Afonso I, King of Kongo, to Manuel I, King of Portugal, 5 October 1514"

Images of Kongo Christian artworks

Selection from The Art of Conversion: Visual Culture in the
Kingdom of Kongo by Cécile Fremont

Topic 1.11: Enslavement in Africa
This topic explores the characteristics of enslavement in West Africa prior to the Atlantic slave trade using historical documents related to voyages, such as those by Alvise Cadamosto.

• Selections from The Voyages of Cadamosto and Other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century edited (2015) by G.R. Crone

Weekly Instructional Focus: Gender, Community, and Knowledge Production

Topic 1.12: Women and Leadership

This topic explores various facets of Queen ldia's and Queen Njinga's leadership by inviting students to consider art works and secondary texts.

• Queen Mother Pendant Mask: lyoba (16th century)
• Illustrations of Queen Njinga
• Selection from Njinga of Angola: Africa's Warrior Queen (2017) by Linda M. Heywood

"The Country of Angola," a video clip (5:18) from the PBS series Africa's Great Civilizations

Topic 1.13: Learning Traditions
This topic explores institutional and community-based models of education in medieval West African societies using historical accounts and oral histories.

• Griot performance of The Epic of Sundiata
• Description of Timbuktu in History and Description of Africa ( 1550) by Leo Africanus
"City of Timbuktu," a video clip (1 :40) from the PBS series Africa's Great Civilizations

Topic 1.14: Indigenous Cosmologies and Culture
This topic explores various belief systems in West African societies. Students can view and discuss musical performances from artists such as Osain del Monte.

• Video of performance by Osain del Monte (Afro-Cuban performance group)

Topic 1.15: Africans in Europe and European in Africa
This topic explores the factors that brought Africans to Europe and Europeans to Africa prior to the transatlantic slave trade. Students may have the opportunity to apply visual analysis to artworks and maps.

Images of artworks showing Africans in Renaissance Europe, such as the Chafariz d'ef Rey (The King's Fountain) in the Alfama district of Lisbon, 1570

15th.century Portuguese map of northwestern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula

Weekly Instructional Focus: Envisioning Early Africa in African American Studies

Topic 1.16: Reframing Early African History

This topic explores how African American studies reframes conceptions of early Africa and its relationship to people of African descent. Students may analyze secondary text selections from historians such as Nell Irvin Painter.

Selection from Chapter 1 : "Africa and Black Americans" from Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present (2006) by Nell Irvin Painter

Topic 1.17: Interdisciplinarity and Multiple Perspectives
This topic explores how the interdisciplinary approach of African American studies incorporates multiple perspectives. Students may read and discuss topics from among the key debates in African American studies as presented by scholars such as Henry Louis Gates Jr.

• "Forty Million Ways to be Black" (2011) by Henry Louis Gates Jr. from Call and Response: Key Debates in African American
Studies

Topic: 1.18: Imagining Africa

This topic explores the question of Africa's relationship to African American ancestry and culture. Students may analyze poetry that expresses connections to and detachments from Africa, such as "Heritage" by Countee Cullen.
• "Heritage" (1925) by Countee Cullen

Topic 1.19: Visualizing Early Africa
This topic explores techniques contemporary African American artists use in music, film, and performance to illustrate the diversity of African cultures and their influence on the African diaspora.

• "Spirit" video (4:30) by Beyonce

Unit 2: Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance (8 weeks)

* Atlantic Africans and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

* The Middle Passage

* Communal Life, Labor, and Law

* Gender and Reformation of Kinship

* Strategies for Change, Part 1

* Strategies for Change, Part 2

* Black Identities

* Abolition and the Politics of Memory

Weekly Instructional Focus: Atlantic Africans and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Topic 2.1: African Explorers in the Americas

This topic explores the various roles Africans played during colonization of the Americas in the 16th century. Students may analyze a primary source text or apply visual analysis to a work of art.

Topic 2.2: Origins and Overview of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
This topic explores the primary embarkation zones in West Africa used during the transatlantic slave trade. Students may examine a map of the transatlantic slave trade and a secondary text to build their awareness that the Africans who arrived in the U.S. originated from regions beyond West Africa.

Topic 2.3: Impact of the Slave Trade on West African Societies in Literature

This topic explores how African and African American authors often combine literary techniques with historical research to convey the impact of the slave trade on West African society. Students may read a short excerpt from a contemporary novel.

Topic 2.4: Architecture and Iconography of a Slave Ship
This topic explores the purpose, context, and audiences for slave ship diagrams circulated during and after the era of slavery. Students may examine archival images or modern art.

Weekly Instructional Focus: The Middle Passage

Topic 2.5: Experiences of Capture and the Middle Passage

This topic explores narratives by formerly enslaved Africans that detail their experience of capture and the middle passage. Students may analyze literary techniques used in primary accounts, such as Olaudah Equiano's narrative, to also consider how these narratives served as political texts that aimed to end the dehumanizing slave trade.

Topic 2.6: Resistance on Slave Ships
This topic explores methods by which Africans resisted their commodification and enslavement during the Middle Passage. Students may examine a primary account, such as the transcript from the Amistad trial.

Topic: 2.7: The Middle Passage in African American Poetry
This topic explores how African American writers use imagery and the senses to recount experiences of enslaved Africans' resistance and foreground resistance as endemic to the slave trade. Students may read or listen to a poem, such as Robert Hayden's "Middle Passage."

Topic 2.8: Slave Auctions and the Domestic Slave Trade

This topic explores the assault to the bodies, minds, and spirits of enslaved Africans at slave auctions and the physical and emotional effects of being sold to unknown territory. Students may analyze a narrative, poem, or historical broadside to build their understanding.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Communal Life, Labor, and Law

Topic 2.9: Labor and Economy

This topic explores the economic effects, within and outside African American communities, of enslaved people's commodification and labor using a narrative or secondary text.

Topic 2.10: Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases
This topic explores the impact of slave codes and landmark cases intended to strip enslaved African Americans of their rights and freedoms and harden the color line in American society for free Blacks. Students may analyze selections from slave codes from different states.

Topic 2.11: Faith Among Free and Enslaved African Americans

This topic explores the context in which various African American faith traditions emerged. Students may analyze a musical performance or apply textual analysis to a song lyric.

Topic 2.12: Music, Art, and Creativity in African Diasporic Cultures
This topic explores how African Americans combined influences from African cultures and local sources to develop new musical and artistic forms of self-expression. Students may examine a work of art or poetry, such as those by David Drake.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Gender and Reformation of Kinship

Topic 2.13: Gender and Slavery in Literature

This topic explores the impact of gender on women's experiences of enslavement, seeking freedom, and writing about their experiences. Students may read select passages from Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, for example.

Topic 2.14: Reproduction and Racial Taxonomies
This topic explores the impact of parlus sequitur ventrem on African American families and the emergence of racial taxonomies in the United States. Students may examine a secondary text, by Jennifer Morgan for example, to build knowledge of the emergence of race as a social construct and part of a system of classification.

Topic 2.15: Recreating Kinship and Traditions
This topic explores the disruptions slavery created for African American families and how enslaved people forged marital and kinship bonds despite these challenges. Students may analyze a poem, such as France Ellen Watkins Harper's "The Fugitive's Wife" or a selection from a narrative.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Strategies for Change, Part 1

Topic 2.16: Race to the Promised Land: The Underground Railroad

This topic directly explores innovative methods of escape via the Underground Railroad. Students may analyze an example of visual or textual narratives, including Harriet Tubman's reflections as captured by a biographer.

Topic 2.17: Fleeing Enslavement
This topic explores the accounts and experience of fleeing enslavement in pursuit of freedom. Students may investigate archival sources such as broadsides and kidnapping advertisements.

Topic 2.18: The Maroons: Black Geographies and Autonomous Black Communities
This topic explores the creation of maroon societies and their lasting influence on the concept of marronage, using a
selection from a secondary text.

Topic 2.19: Legacies of the Haitian Revolution
This topic explores the immediate and long-term impacts of the Haitian Revolution on Black politics and historical memory.
Students may analyze an excerpt from a Haitian founding document, such as the Haitian Constitution ( 1805) or Haiti's
Declaration of Independence (1804) or a secondary text from anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Strategies for Change, Part 2

Topic 2.20: Radical Resistance

This topic explores strategies advocating for radical resistance and the reception to those ideas. Students may analyze a text from leaders such as David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet.

Topic 2.21: The "Common Wind" of Revolt Across the Diaspora
This topic explores the interconnecting influence of slave revolts and the impact of different strategies. Students may examine a secondary source on figures like Nat Turner, for example.

Topic 2.22: Moral Suasion and Literary Protest
This topic explores the political strategies of moral suasion and radical resistance among African Americans in the United
States. Students may analyze a primary text from authors such as Phillis Wheatley or a secondary text.

Topic 2.23: Separatism: Emigration and Colonization
This topic explores various perspectives on African American emigration and colonization by reviewing a primary source
document, such as a newspaper article or letter.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Black Identities

Topic 2.24: Integration: Transatlantic Abolitionism and Belonging in Antebellum America

This topic explores the influence of transatlantic abolitionism on Frederick Douglass' political views on the potential for African Americans' integration and belonging in American society. Students may analyze a text by Douglass, such as "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

Topic 2.25: A Question of Naming: African and/or American
This topic explores factors that influenced African Americans' self-identification within American society. Students may examine a secondary source from a historian or analyze a primary source from a Black newspaper such as The Liberator.

Topic 2.26: Black Women's Rights & Women

This topic explores the intersection of race and gender in African American women activists' advocacy for justice. Students may analyze a primary source speech.

Topic: 2.27: Black Pride

This topic explores John S. Rock's 1858 speech on Black pride and the significance of the concept for African American communities. Students may review and discuss the speech alongside another text, such as Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Abolition and the Politics of Memory

Topic 2.28: The Civil War and Black Communities

This topic explores the contributions of free and enslaved African Americans in the U.S. Civil War. Students may examine a poem and archival images to deepen their knowledge.

Topic 2.29: Theorizing Slavery and Resistance in African American Studies
This topic explores the utility of the concept of social death for understanding African American agency during the period of enslavement. Students may compare arguments from secondary texts related to this concept.

Topic 2.30: The Afterlives of Slavery in Contemporary Culture

This topic explores artistic reflections on slavery's enduring legacy for African Americans. Students may analyze lyrics from a contemporary music selection.

Topic 2.31: Commemorating the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom
This topic explores Juneteenth and its significance for African Americans prior to its recognition as a federal holiday. Students may analyze photographs of Jubilee celebrations.

Unit 3: The Practice of Freedom (7 weeks)

* Reconstruction and Black Politics

* Uplift Ideology

* The New Negro Resistance

* Art, Literature, and Music

* Migrations, Pan-Africanism, and Black Internationalism

* AP Extended Essay

Weekly Instructional Focus: Reconstruction and Black Politics

Topic 3.1: Reconstruction and Its Discontents

This topic explores the Reconstruction amendments that defined Black citizenship and Black leadership in the postemancipation period. Students may analyze historical texts from writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

Topic 3.2: Health and Education for Freedpeople
This topic explores freedpeople's efforts to acquire educational and healthcare resources immediately after abolition and the institutions that supported these efforts. Students may review historical photographs of freedpeople's schools and hospitals and a selection from a scholarly text by an author such as Heather Williams.

Topic 3.3: Violence and White Supremacy

This topic explores Black responses to white retaliation against strides toward Black political and social advancement during and after Reconstruction. Students may explore the manifestations of racial terrorism physically (e.g., through lynching), socially, and in discriminatory policies through historical texts, by writers such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Claude McKay.

Topic 3.4: Reuniting Black Families
This topic traces African Americans' efforts to reconstruct their families in the 1860s and 1870s, including their searches for lost kin separated by slavery and their decisions to consecrate families through marriage. Students may explore these efforts through a primary source, such as a newspaper ad, or a scholarly source by writers such as Heather Williams and Tera Hunter.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Uplift Ideology

Topic 3.5: Racial Uplift

This topic explores ideas and strategies for Black social, political, and economic advancement within Black communities. Students may explore the speeches and writings of leaders such as Booker T. Washington and Henry McNeal Turner.

Topic 3.6: Black Suffrage and Women's Rights
This topic explores Black women's advocacy for justice and political inclusion at the intersection of race and gender in the late 19th century. Students may explore a speech or text from leaders such as Anna Julia Cooper and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Topic 3.7: HBCUs and Black Education

This topic introduces the founding of autonomous Black educational institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Students may examine historical photographs of these institutions and a text on Black education by Carter G. Woodson.

Topic 3.8: Labor and Economics
This topic examines the nature of Black labor and Black businesses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Students may examine the simultaneity of exploitative post-slavery labor systems (e.g., sharecropping and convict leasing) and the
advent of Black inventions and businesses through a scholarly text and visual analysis of photographs.

Weekly Instructional Focus: The New Negro Renaissance

Topic 3.9: The New Negro Movement

This topic explores new visions for Black identity that emerged around artistic and literary expression and social thought.
Students may explore the influence of the New Negro Movement on the political ideas of subsequent movements
through text by a writer such as Alain Locke.

Topic 3.10: Black Expression
This topic explores diverse perspectives on the flourishing of African American artistic and expressive forms. Students may examine the influence of "New Negro" themes in the writings on art by figures such as Langston Hughes, George Schuyler, and Zora Neale Hurston.

Topic 3.11: Everyday Life in Literature
This topic explores everyday life during the Harlem Renaissance as portrayed by an author such as Jean Toomer.

Topic 3.12: Black Identity in Literature
This topic explores aspects of Black identity, including colorism, through the literary works of Harlem Renaissance authors, such as Nella Larsen and Wallace Thurman.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Art, Literature, and Music

Topic 3.13: The Harlem Renaissance in Art

This topic explores elements of visual art from the Harlem Renaissance through the work of artists such as Palmer Hayden, Lo'is Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden, James Van Der Zee, and Aaron Douglass.

Topic 3.14: The Rise and Fall of Harlem
This topic explores reflections on the rise and fall of Harlem and its impact on African American communities in the U.S. and abroad. Students may explore reflections on the newly fashioned identities, emerging post-slavery folk traditions, or continuing effects of institutional racism from a writer, such as Ralph Ellison, Manuel Zapata Olivella, and James Weldon Johnson.

Topic 3.15: Music and the Black National Anthem

This topic explores the musical genres that African Americans innovated in the early 20th century and the use of music for social and political purposes. Students may explore the contemporary prominence of what is known as the Black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" through sources by James Weldon Johnson and lmani Perry.

Topic 3.16: Black in America: Reflections
This topic explores enduring themes in literature on Black experiences in the U.S. Students may examine a selection from Black writers, such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Migrations, Pan-Africanism, and Black Internationalism

Topic 3.17: The Great Migration

This topic explores the scale and impact of African American migration in the century after the Civil War, including motivations to escape racial oppression and political and economic marginalization in the U.S. South. Students may explore sources such as newspapers and photographs, the art of Jacob Lawrence, or scholarly texts, such as one from Isabel Wilkerson.

Topic 3.18: Afro-Caribbean Migration to the U.S.
This topic examines the wave of Afro-Caribbean migration to the U.S. and the influence of changing demographics on African American political thought. Students may explore this process through a figure like Arturo Schomburg or an excerpt from the writings of Wilfred A. Domingo.

Topic 3.19: Marcus Garvey and the UNIA
This topic explores the influence of Marcus Garvey and the founding of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) on the Black political sphere in the early twentieth century. Students may examine political ideas in a speech from Marcus Garvey or a debate between Garvey and other African American leaders.

Topic 3.20: The Pan-African Congresses
This topic explores the political concept of Pan-Africanism, including its roots in the collective experiences of Afro descendants throughout the world and response to European colonialization in Africa. Students may explore contrasting perspectives on Pan-Africanist approaches through texts from authors such as W.E.B. Du Bois or George Schuyler.

Unit 4: Movements and Debates (8 weeks)

* Anti-Colonial Movements and Military Service

* The Long Civil Rights Movement

* Black Power, Black Arts, Black Pride, and the Birth of Black Studies

* The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality

* African American Studies: Movements and Methods

* Diversity Within Black Communities

* Black Lives Today

* New Directions in African American Studies

Weekly Instructional Focus: Anti-Colonial Movements and Military Service

Topic 4.1: Anti-Colonial Politics and the African Diaspora

This topic explores the writings of Martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon on the impact of colonialism and racism on Black consciousness and the influence of this work on Black political movements in the U.S.

Topic 4.2: The Négritude Movement

This topic explores the literary and political influence of the Negritude Movement, including the influences of the Harlem Renaissance and its promotion of Black cultural pride throughout the diaspora. Students may examine selections of a text by Aimé Césaire.

Topic 4.3: African Americans and the U.S. Occupation of Haiti
This topic explores the impact of the U.S. occupation of Haiti on Black political discourse in the U.S. Students may explore how the occupation influenced ideas about transnational Black identity and American values through an excerpt from the writings of James Weldon Johnson.

Topic 4.4: Black Military Service and the G.I. Bill

This topic explores Black military service and the differential benefits of the G.I. Bill for White and Black veterans. Students may examine historical photographs and selections from a scholarly text.

Weekly Instructional Focus: The Long Civil Rights Movement

Topic 4.5: Segregation, Discrimination, and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

This topic explores the impact of Jim Crow-era segregation and discrimination in the areas of housing and education. It also foregrounds the grassroots organizing at the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement. Students may examine primary sources such as maps, newspaper articles, or selections from landmark cases including Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Topic 4.6: The Big Four: NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, CORE
This topic explores unique facets of the major organizations, ideas, and events of the Civil Rights Movement, with special emphasis on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Students may examine historical photographs, a primary source text, or a selection from a scholarly text.

Topic 4.7: Civil Rights Leaders

This topic explores distinctions between major political leaders of the Civil Rights era. Students may examine speeches, a primary source text, and photographs of leaders such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.

Topic 4.8: Faith and the Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement

This topic explores the impact of faith, religious organizations, and music on Black advocacy for civil rights. It focuses on African Americans' use of music for empowerment and to express visions for a better future. Students may examine lyrics, performances, or a selection from a scholarly text on the freedom songs of the Civil Rights Movement.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Black Power, Black Arts, Black Pride, and the Birth of Black Studies

Topic 4.9: The Black Power Movement and the Black Power Party

This topic introduces the political shift of the Black Power Movement through the lens of the Black Panther Party. Students may examine photographs and a text featuring leaders such as Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

Topic 4.10: The Black Arts Movement

This topic explores the influence of the Black Power Movement on the emergence of the Black Arts Movement's artist-activists and intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s. Students may examine various forms of visual art and an example of the writings of Amiri Baraka.

Topic 4.11: The Black Is Beautiful Movement
This topic explores how the movement to express pride in aesthetic and cultural elements of Black heritage became an instrument of Black joy and liberation. Students may examine excerpts from articles in Ebony magazine or Elizabeth Catlett's piece, "Negro es Bello."

Topic 4.12: Student Protest and the Birth of Black Studies
This topic explores the birth of the field of Black studies from student-led protest and the political and cultural movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. Students may examine a primary or secondary source on the founding of Black studies departments across the nation, including from writers like June Jordan and Fabio Rojas.

Weekly Instructional Focus: The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality

Topic 4.13: The Black Feminist Movement and Womanism

This topic explores the Black feminist movement, the concept of womanism, and approaches that center the unique everyday experiences of Black women. Students may analyze a text such as the Combahee River Collective Statement or an excerpt from writers such as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Alice Walker, or Audre Lorde.

Topic 4.14: African American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race
This topic explores scholarship on the intersections of analyses of race, power, and Black women's experiences in a text by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham.

Topic 4.15: lntersectionality and Activism

This topic examines intersectionality as an analytical framework and its connection to Chicana and Asian American feminist thought. Students may explore a text from the writings of Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, or Angela Davis.

Topic 4.16: Black Feminist Literary Thought
This topic explores the literary contributions of Black feminist and womanist writers. Students may examine a literary text from authors such as Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, bell hooks, and Nikki Giovani.

Weekly Instructional Focus: African American Studies: Movements and Methods

Topic 4.17: The Black Intellectual Tradition

This topic explores the development of a Black intellectual tradition before and after slavery at the foundations of Black studies. Students may examine a text by Manning Marable and Darlene Clark Hine.

Topic 4.18: Movements and Methods in Black Studies
This topic explores how Black social and political movements shaped Black studies and the impact of institutionalization in universities on the field. Students may examine a text by Sylvia Wynter.

Topic 4.19: Black Queer Studies
This topic explores the concept of the queer of color critique, grounded in Black feminism and intersectionality, as a Black studies lens that shifts sexuality studies toward racial analysis. Students may examine texts by writers such as Cathy Cohen, Roderick Ferguson, or E. Patrick Johnson.

Topic 4.20: Afrocentricity in Black Studies
This topic explores the lens of Afrocentricity in Black studies and its influence on Black cultural practices. Students may examine a text by a writer such as Molefi Kete Asante.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Diversity Within Black Communities

Topic 4.21: Demographic Diversity in African American Communities

This topic explores the diverse experiences and identities of Black communities in the U.S. in areas such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, language, or education, with specific attention to the last 20 years. Students may analyze a data set from the Pew Research Center's reports on African Americans.

Topic 4.22: "Postracial" Racism and Colorblindness
This topic explores concepts such as postracialism, colorblindness, racecraft, or inequality through a scholarly text by authors such as Eduardo Bonilla Silva and Barbara J. Fields.

Topic 4.23: Politics and Class in African American Communities
This topic explores the diversity of political and economic affiliations among African Americans and the range of perspectives held on various political issues. Students may examine a selection of scholarly texts or a data set from the Pew Research Center's reports on African Americans.

Topic 4.24: Religion and Faith in Black Communities
This topic explores Black Liberation Theology and connects to contemporary debates on the role of religious activism as a tool for overcoming anti-Black racism and oppression. Students may analyze a text from scholars such as James Cone and Jacquelyn Grant.

Weekly Instructional Focus: Black Lives Today

Topic 4.25: Medicine, Technology, and the Environment

This topic explores the impact of the intersections of race, medicine, technology, and the environment on the lives of African Americans. Students may examine inequities and opportunities for change in these areas through a scholarly text.

Topic 4.26: Incarceration and Abolition
This topic explores the long history of Black incarceration from the 13th Amendment to the present and the influence of 19thcentury policies on the prison industrial complex. Students may examine the relationship between carceral studies and abolition movements in the work of a scholar such as Michelle Alexander.

Topic 4.27: The Evolution of African American Music
The topic explores the evolution of the African American music and its influence on broader American musical production. Students may examine performances and scholarship in ethnomusicology from a writer such as Portia Maultsby and Amiri Baraka.

Topic 4.28: Black Vernacular, Pop Culture, and Cultural Appropriation

This topic explores the concept of cultural appropriation and the influence of African American communities on popular culture and American vernacular. Students may examine a scholarly text or an analysis of social networks such as Black Twitter.

Weekly Instructional Focus: New Directions in African American Studies

Topic 4.29: Movements for Black Lives

This topic explores the origins, mission, and global influence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the Movement for Black Lives. Students may examine a primary source text, photographs, or a secondary text from scholars such as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Leslie Kay Jones.

Topic 4.30: The Reparations Movement
This topic explores the case for reparations for the centuries-long enslavement and legal discrimination of African Americans in the U.S. Students may examine House Bill H.R. 40 and a text by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Topic 4.31: Black Study and Black Struggle in the 21st Century
This topic explores reflections on the evolution of Black studies and the field's salience in the present through a text by scholars, such as Robin D.G. Kelley.

Topic 4.32: Black Futures and Afrofuturism
This topic explores the cultural aesthetics and practices of Afrofuturism. Students may examine a scholarly or literary text or film such as an example from the writings of Octavia Butler, Tiffany E. Barber, or the film Black Panther.

Assessment quotes:

Paul Laurence Dunbar, "The Colored Soldiers," 1895
If the muse were mine to tempt it
And my feeble voice were strong,
If my tongue were trained to measures,
I would sing a stirring song.
I would sing a song heroic
Of those noble sons of Ham
Of the gallant colored soldiers
Who fought for Uncle Sam!
In the early days you scorned them,
And with many a flip and flout
Said "These battles are the white man's,
And the whites will fight them out."
Up the hills you fought and faltered,
In the vales you strove and bled,
While your ears still heard the thunder
Of the foes' advancing tread.
Then distress fell on the nation,
And the flag was drooping low;
Should the dust pollute your banner?
No! the nation shouted, No!
So when War, in savage triumph,
Spread abroad his funeral pall
Then you called the colored soldiers,
And they answered to your call.

''To the honorable Andrew T. Judson, Judge of the District Court of the Unites States for the District of Connecticut:

The Respondents by protestations ... say they are natives of Africa and were born free, and ever since have been, and still of right are and ought to be free, and not slaves ... that on or about the 15th day of April 1839 they were in the land of their nativity unlawfully kidnapped and forcibly and wrongfully carried on board [La Amistad] near the coast of Africa by certain persons to them unknown and were thence unlawfully transported to the Island of Cuba for the unlawful purpose of being there sold as slaves.

That the respondents, being treated on board said vessel with great cruelty and oppression, and being of right free, were incited by the love of liberty natural to all men, and by the desire of returning to their families and kindred, to take possession of said vessel, while navigating the high seas with the intent to return therein to their native country or to seek an asylum in some free State where Slavery did not exist in order that they might enjoy their liberty under the protection of its government.

Wherefore the Respondents say that neither by the Constitution or laws of the United States or any Treaty pursuant thereto nor by the law of nations doth it pertain to this Honorable Court to exercise any jurisdiction over these respondents and they pray to be hence released, and to remain as they of right ought to be free and at liberty from this process of this Honorable Court."

- Plea to the Jurisdiction of Cinque and Others, regarding the case of the ship La Amistad, August 21, 1839

"Black studies students and scholars are not bound by any geographical location. We consider the world to be our purview and thus it is necessary to study black experiences within global processes of racial ordering in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Pacific, and Asia. Black studies scholars connect, draw parallels, and chart discontinuities between people of color in diverse locations, at disparate times or eras. Black studies scholars explore all societies that have had historical or contemporary experiences with slavery, colonialism, segregation, and apartheid. In other words, because black peoples have had to engage in freedom struggles and wars of liberation even in the aftermath of slavery, they have often had to contend with de jure* slavery such as the legal disfranchisement and segregation in the Jim Crow era. Because the end of colonialism has often been followed by political and economic neo-colonialism and vestiges of colonial racial stratification such as colorism, freedom struggles remain ongoing imperatives."

*practices that are legally recognized

- Darlene Clark Hine, "A Black Studies Manifesto," The Black Scholar, Summer 2014

Sources

Research Takeaway:
Careful curation of texts and sources should provide students direct and deep encounters with historical, cultural, and intellectual developments across multiple perspectives and disciplines.

Among the sample of 107 college course syllabi, just under two-thirds list a textbook (61 %, n = 65). A total of 27 textbooks are referenced across the syllabi. Twelve textbooks are used by more than one institution, with
Karenga's Introduction to Black Studies, Gomez's Reversing Sail, and Anderson and Stewart's Introduction to African American Studies being the top three.

TABLE 4: TEXTBOOKS AS INDICATED ON COLLEGE SYLLABI

Textbook
Introduction to Black Studies
Reversing Sail
Introduction to African American Studies Africana Studies
Freedom on My Mind
Out of the Revolution
Keywords for African American Studies

A Turbulent Voyage
The African-American Odyssey
From Slavery to Freedom
Race in North America
African Americans: A Concise History

Author(s)/Editor(s)
Karenga
Gomez
Anderson and Stewart
Azevedo
Gray White, Bay, and Martin

Aldridge and Young
Edwards et al.
Hayes
Hine Clark
Franklin and Higginbotham

Smedley and Smedley
Clark Hine, Hine, and Harrold

# Institutions Using

8
6
6
5
5

In addition to textbooks, types of texts were catalogued, revealing that short nonfiction pieces (e.g., essay,
journal article, speech) are the most used type of literature with 79% of the sample including these texts. Long nonfiction pieces (e.g., full-length books) were also common, with 75% of the sample including these, as were various forms of media (e.g., film, music, podcast), with 71 % of the sample including these. Less common were literature sources (e.g., novel, short story, poetry), with just over one-third of the sample naming these types of texts on their syllabi (36%).

As far as the specific titles of works on syllabi, W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk is by far the most widely represented text, with 24 syllabi including this text. Other texts span genres including poetry, essays, letters,
narratives, speeches, journal articles, folklore, and calls to action. Among the most frequently used texts, only
four are written by women.

For high school courses, there is some overlap with frequently listed texts. Of the 16 most common texts for high school and college courses, five texts are common: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, "Letter from a
Birmingham Jail," Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano, and "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

When looking at the most common authors, many are the same names that appear on the list of most common texts, though there are some differences, particularly for authors of multiple seminal works rather than a single common text (e.g., Henry Louis Gates Jr., James Baldwin, Audre Lorde).

TABLE 5: COMMON TEXTS ON COLLEGE SYLLABl 2

Text

"The Souls of Black Folk"

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

"Discourse on Colonialism"

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"

"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

Notes on the State of Virginia

"The Case for Reparations"

The Mis-Education of the Negro

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Atlanta Exposition Address/Atlanta Compromise

"If We Must Die"

Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali

"The Ballot or the Bullet"

The Wretched of the Earth

"Mapping the Margins: lntersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color"
"On How We Mistook the Map for the Territory, and Re-Imprisoned Ourselves in Our Unbearable Wrongness of Being, of Desêtre: Black Studies Toward the Human Project"

Between the World and Me

"Message to the Grassroots"

"The Negro Art Hokum"

"The Black Campus Movement and the
Institutionalization of Black Studies, 1965-1970"
"Black Studies and Global Perspectives: An Essay"

2 Only texts that appeared on at least three college syllabi are listed here.

Author

W.E.B.DuBois

Michelle Alexander

Martin Luther King, Jr.

David Walker

Frederick Douglass

Aimé Césaire

Harriet Jacobs

Langston Hughes

Frederick Douglass

Thomas Jefferson

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Carter G. Woodson

Olaudah Equiano

Booker T. Washington

Claude McKay

D.T. Niane

MalcolmX.

Frantz Fanon

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Sylvia Wynter

Ta-Nehisi Coates

MalcolmX.

George Schuyler

lbram H. Rogers

St. Clair Drake

Genre

Essay

Nonfiction book

Letter

Call to action

Narrative

Essay

Narrative

Essay

Speech

Nonfiction book

Article

Nonfiction book

Narrative

Speech

Poem

Folklore

Speech

Nonfiction book

Article

Book chapter

Nonfiction book

Speech

Article

Essay

Institutions Using #

TABLE 6: COMMON TEXTS ON HIGH SCHOOL SYLLABI

Author(s)
Founding Fathers
NA; course opinion written by Justice Earl Warren

Founding Fathers Abraham Lincoln

NA
Martin Luther King Jr.
Harriet Jacobs
Martin Luther King Jr.
Frederick Douglass
NA; court opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown
Richard Rothstein

Olaudah Equiano

Founding Fathers
Solomon Northrup
Founding Fathers
Frederick Douglass

Genre

Laws

Court Case

Declaration

Proclamation

Laws

Speech

Narrative

Letter

Narrative

Court Case

Nonfiction Book

Narrative

Law

Narrative

Law

Speech

Beyond written texts, many syllabi also referenced visual and audio texts, with film being most common. Some common films showing in college courses are Race: The Power of an Illusion, Black Is ... Black Ain't, and The Birth of a Nation.

TABLE 7: AUTHORS APPEARING ON 10 OR MORE INSTITUTIONS' SYLLABI

Author
W.E.B. DuBois
Frederick Douglass

Martin Luther King Jr.

Ta-Nehisi Coates
Michelle Alexander

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

MalcolmX.
David Walker
Langston Hughes
James Baldwin
Aimé Césaire

Patricia Hill Collins
Harriet Jacobs
Audre Lorde

Institutions Using #

In contrast, high school courses are more likely to incorporate excerpts from feature films than documentaries in their courses, often turning to more recent pieces. The only film that was common to both college and high school syllabi was the 1987 PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize.

TABLE 8: FILMS APPEARING ON HIGH SCHOOL COURSE DOCUMENTS

Work
42
12 Years a Slave
Amistad
Eyes on the Prize
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

Roots
The Great Debaters
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Type
Feature film
Feature film
Feature film
Documentary
Documentary
Television miniseries

Feature film
Documentary

From these analyses it is evident there is some overlap in written and visual texts between high school and college courses, though college courses emphasize nonfiction writing and documentary films, while high school courses lean toward court cases, U.S. founding documents, and feature films.

Sources for Consideration
The following sources represent a strong consensus across the college syllabi analyzed for the AP course design and will likely be examined during the course. As we continue to engage college faculty, partner museums, and other
organizations throughout the course development and pilot phase, the AP Program will actively curate textual, visual, and data sources to infuse into the course experience.

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr.
Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World by David Walker
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
"Discourse on Colonialism" by Aimé Césaire
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs
"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" by Langston Hughes
"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" by Frederick Douglass
Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson
"The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano
Atlanta Exposition Address/Atlanta Compromise by Booker T. Washington
"If We Must Die" by Claude McKay
Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali by D.T. Niane
"The Ballot or the Bullet" by Malcolm X.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
"Mapping the Margins: lntersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color" by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
"On How We Mistook the Map for the Territory, and Re-Imprisoned Ourselves in Our Unbearable Wrongness of Being, of Desêtre: Black Studies Toward the Human Project" by Sylvia Wynter
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
"Message to the Grassroots" by Malcolm X.
"The Negro Art Hokum" by George Schuyler
"The Black Campus Movement and the Institutionalization of Black Studies, 1965-1970" by lbram H. Rogers
"Black Studies and Global Perspectives: An Essay" by St. Clair Drake

Text
13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
Brown v. Topeka Board of Education

Declaration of Independence
Emancipation Proclamation
Fugitive Slave Acts
"I Have a Dream"
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail"
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Plessy v. Ferguson

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Three-Fifths Compromise
Twelve Years a Slave
U.S. Constitution
"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

Course list for AP African American Studies

Official framework Feb 2023 (234 pages)

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/about-ap/how-ap-develops-courses-and-exams/pilot-ap-african-american-studies

The Smithsonian Institution and Advanced Placement In collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, the AP Program has developed the AP African American Studies: Teaching with Objects Learning Lab, an interactive site that offers students and teachers access to a digital collection of Smithsonian resources listed in the course framework. The Learning Lab includes a host of objects, artworks, photographs, texts, and other primary sources that are organized by unit and topic. As students and teachers advance through the course, these curated resources create opportunities for deep analysis, exploration and discussion. These resources are available at: https://s.si.edu/ APAfricanAmericanStudies.

Unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora (5 Weeks)

* Introduction to African American Studies

* The Strength and Complexity of Early African Societies

* Early West African Empires

* Early African Kingdoms and City-States

* Early Africa and Global Politics

Instructional Focus: Introduction to African American Studies

1.1: What Is African American Studies?

Black Studies National Conference program, 1975

Medicine and Transportation by Thelma Johnson Streat, 1942–1944

“Outcast” by Claude McKay, 1922

SOURCES

§ Black Studies National Conference program, 1975

§ Medicine and Transportation by Thelma Johnson Streat, 1942–1944

§ “Outcast” by Claude McKay, 1922

Instructional Focus: The Strength and Complexity of Early African Societies

1.2 The African Continent: A Varied Landscape

Map showing the major climate regions of Africa

SOURCES

§ Map showing the major climate regions of Africa

1.3 Population Growth and Ethnolinguistic Diversity

Map showing the movement of Bantu people, languages, and technologies

SOURCES

§ Map showing the movement of Bantu people, languages, and technologies

1.4 Ancestral Africa: Ancient Societies and African American Studies

Image of Aksumite coin showing King Ezana, c. 300–340

Image of Nok sculpture, c. 900 BCE–200 CE

SOURCES

§ Image of Aksumite coin showing King Ezana, c. 300–340

§ Image of Nok sculpture, c. 900 BCE–200 CE

Source Notes

§ Nubia emerged in present-day Egypt and Sudan. Meroë developed its own system of writing.

§ Archaeological research in the 1940s helped to uncover the Nok society’s history. Common features of Nok sculptures include naturalistic sculptures of animals and sculptures of people adorned by various hairstyles and jewelry.

§ The similarity of Nok sculptures to the brass terracotta works of the Ife Yoruba and Benin cultures suggests that the Nok society may be their early ancestor

Instructional Focus: Early West African Empires

1.5 The Sudanic Empires Map of Africa’s kingdoms and empires

SOURCES

§ Map of Africa’s kingdoms and empires

Source Notes

§ Ancient Ghana was located in present-day Mauritania and Mali. The present-day Republic of Ghana embraced the name of the ancient empire when it achieved independence from colonial rule.

1.6 Global Visions of the Mali Empire

Catalan Atlas by Abraham Cresques, 1375

Image of Mali equestrian figure, 13th–15th century

SOURCES

§ Catalan Atlas by Abraham Cresques, 1375

§ Image of Mali equestrian figure, 13th–15th century

Source Notes

§ The Mali Empire encompassed portions of present-day Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal.

§ The title Mansa refers to a ruler or king among Mande speakers.

§ The Catalan Atlas details the wealth and influence of the ruler Mansa Musa and the Mali Empire based on the perspective of a cartographer from Spain. Mansa Musa is adorned with a gold crown and orb. The Catalan Atlas conveys the influence of Islam on West African societies and the function of Mali as a center for trade and cultural exchange.

1.7 Learning Traditions

“The Sunjata Story—Glimpse of a Mande Epic,” a griot performance of The Epic of Sundiata (video)

SOURCES

§ “The Sunjata Story - Glimpse of a Mande Epic,” a griot performance of The Epic of Sundiata (video, 20:00)

Instructional Focus: Early African Kingdoms and City-States

Source Notes

§ Mande griots have passed down oral traditions such as the Epic of Sundiata (the “lion prince”) for centuries, and it is still celebrated today in the nation of Mali. The epic recounts the early life of Sundiata Keita (an ancestor of Mansa Musa), founder of the Mali Empire, and it preserves the early history of the Mande people.

1.8 Indigenous Cosmologies and Religious Syncretism

“Osain del Monte - Abbilona” (video)

SOURCES

§ “Osain del Monte - Abbilona” (video, 4:00; from 36:00–40:00)

1.9 Southern Africa: Great Zimbabwe

Images of Great Zimbabwe’s walls and stone enclosures, 12th–15th century

SOURCES

§ Images of Great Zimbabwe’s walls and stone enclosures, 12th–15th century

1.10 East Africa: Culture and Trade in the Swahili Coast

Map showing Indian Ocean trade routes from the Swahili Coast

SOURCES

§ Map showing Indian Ocean trade routes from the Swahili Coast

Instructional Focus: Early Africa and Global Politics

1.11 West Central Africa: The Kingdom of Kongo

“Excerpt of letter from Nzinga Mbemba to Portuguese King João III,” 1526

Image of triple crucifix, 16th–19th century

SOURCES

§ “Excerpt of letter from Nzinga Mbemba to Portuguese King João III,” 1526, World History Commons

§ Image of triple crucifix, 16th–19th century

1.12 Kinship and Political Leadership

Illustration of Queen Njinga, 1754

Image of Queen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba, 16th century

SOURCES

§ Image of Illustration of Queen Njinga, 1754

§ Image of Queen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba, 16th century

Source Notes

§ The 16th-century ivory mask of Queen Idia was designed as a pendant to be worn to inspire Benin’s warriors. It includes features that express the significance of Queen Idia’s leadership. Faces adorn the top of Queen Idia’s head, representing her skill in diplomacy and trade with the Portuguese. Her forehead features scarifications made from iron, which identify her as a warrior. The beads above her face depict afro-textured hair, valorizing her natural features

1.13 Global Africans

Chafariz d’El Rey (The King’s Fountain), 1570–1580

SOURCES

§ Chafariz d’El Rey (The King’s Fountain), 1570–1580

Source Notes

§ The Chafariz d’El-Rey illustrates the substantial presence of Africans and the range of roles they played in urban Iberian port cities like Lisbon, where they comprised 10% of the city’s population in the 16th century. It depicts João de Sá Panasco, an African Portuguese knight of the Order of Saint James, riding a horse and two African noblemen in European attire bearing swords in the right corner. It also depicts an African court guard and Muslim African traders in the upper left. The painting shows the interchange between African and European societies well before the height of the transatlantic slave trade.

Unit 2: Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance (8 Weeks)

* Atlantic Africans and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

* From Capture to Sale: The Middle Passage

* Slavery, Labor, and American Law

* Culture and Community

* Radical Resistance and Revolt

* Resistance Strategies, Part 1

* Resistance Strategies, Part 2

* Abolition and the War for Freedom

Instructional Focus: Atlantic Africans and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

2.1 African Explorers in America

Juan Garrido’s petition, 1538

Juan Garrido on a Spanish expedition, 16th century

SOURCES

§ Juan Garrido’s petition, 1538

§ Juan Garrido on a Spanish expedition, 16th century

2.2 Departure Zones in Africa and the Slave Trade to the U.S.

Departure zones and destinations of captive Africans, 1500-1900 CE

Map showing the regional origins of enslaved people forcibly transported to North America

SOURCES

§ Departure zones and destinations of captive Africans, 1500-1900 CE

§ Map showing the regional origins of enslaved people forcibly transported to North America

2.3 Capture and the Impact of the Slave Trade on West African Societies

Excerpt from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself by Olaudah Equiano, 1789

“On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley, 1773

SOURCES

§ Excerpt from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself by Olaudah Equiano, 1789 (selection from chapter 2)

§ “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley, 1773

Source Notes

§ Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a book of poetry. Her iconic portrait, attributed to the enslaved African American painter Scipio Moorehead, is the first known individual portrait of an African American.

Instructional Focus: From Capture to Sale: The Middle Passage

2.4 Architecture and Iconography of a Slave Ship

Stowage of the British slave ship Brookes, early 19th century

Stowage by Willie Cole, 1997

SOURCES

§ Stowage of the British slave ship Brookes, early 19th century

§ Stowage by Willie Cole, 1997

Source Notes

§ In the 18th and 19th centuries, slave ship diagrams created a visual archive of commodification by depicting individual Africans as an anonymous, homogenous group of fungible goods for sale.

§ Today, the icon of the slave ship embodies a pivotal development in the shared history of communities of African descent—the birth of a global diaspora.

§ In Stowage, contemporary artist Willie Cole uses an everyday object (an iron) to symbolize the history of his ancestors—Africans brought through the Middle Passage to labor in the homes of their enslavers. The detailed vertical faces of the iron represent the various African communities that would have traveled in a slave ship, and the horizontal image represents the ship itself.

2.5 Resistance on Slave Ships

Plea to the Jurisdiction of Cinque and Others, 1839

Sketches of the captive survivors from the Amistad trial, 1839

SOURCES

§ Plea to the Jurisdiction of Cinquè and Others, 1839

§ Sketches of the captive survivors from the Amistad trial, 1839

Source Notes

§ Although they outnumbered their enslavers, Africans faced incredible obstacles and risked near-certain death by resisting their enslavement aboard slave ships.

§ Sengbe Pieh was also known as Joseph Cinquè.

2.6 Slave Auctions

Solomon Northup’s description of the New Orleans Slave Market, 1841

“The Slave Auction” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1854

SOURCES

§ Solomon Northup’s description of the New Orleans Slave Market, 1841

§ “The Slave Auction” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1854

Source Notes

§ Solomon Northup, a free Black musician who was captured and illegally sold into slavery on a cotton plantation in Louisiana, provided an eyewitness account in his narrative, Twelve Years a Slave.

§ Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a poet, suffragist, and abolitionist was the first African American woman to publish a short story.

Instructional Focus: Slavery, Labor, and American Law

2.7 The Domestic Slave Trade and Forced Migration

Map showing cotton expansion and the growth of slavery in the U.S. South

Broadside for an auction of enslaved persons at the Charleston Courthouse, 1859

SOURCES

§ Map showing cotton expansion and the growth of slavery in the U.S. South

§ Broadside for an auction of enslaved persons at the Charleston Courthouse, 1859

2.8 Labor, Culture, and Economy

Broadside advertising “Valuable Slaves at Auction” in New Orleans, 1859

Rice fanner basket, c. 1863

SOURCES

§ Broadside advertising “Valuable Slaves at Auction” in New Orleans, 1859

§ Rice fanner basket, c. 1863

Source Notes

§ The broadside illustrates the wide range of tasks enslaved people performed (e.g., engineer, ship caulker, ironer), their ages, and other characteristics, such as the languages spoken and their racial designations. It also captures the lingering influence of French and Spanish racial nomenclature on New Orleans; enslaved people are listed as “black,” “mulatto,” and “griffe” (three quarters Black and one quarter Indigenous).

§ The rice fanner basket conveys the transfer of agricultural and artistic knowledge from Africa to the U.S. The coiled features of African American basket-making traditions in the Lowcountry resemble those currently made in Senegal and Angola

2.9 Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases

Excerpts from the South Carolina Slave Code, 1740

Articles 1–10 from the Louisiana Slave Code, 1724

Article 1, Section 2 and Article 4, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, 1787

Excerpts from Dred Scott’s plea and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857

SOURCES

§ Excerpts from the South Carolina slave code, 1740

§ Articles 1–10 from the Louisiana slave code, 1724

§ Article 1, Section 2 and Article 4, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, 1787

§ Excerpts from Dred Scott’s plea and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857

Source Notes

§ Louisiana’s Code Noir contained restrictions similar to those in South Carolina’s slave code, along with a greater emphasis on Catholic instruction and regulations that acknowledged the possibility of marriage between enslaved people but forbid interracial relationships.

§ The Dred Scott decision was overturned by the Reconstruction Amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution).

§ By 1860, Black men could only vote in five of the six New England states (Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire).

Instructional Focus: Culture and Community

2.10 The Concept of Race and the Reproduction of Status

Laws of Virginia, Act XII, General Assembly, 1662

“Am I not a woman and a sister” from The Liberator, 1849

SOURCES

§ Laws of Virginia, Act XII, General Assembly, 1662

§ “Am I not a Woman and a Sister” from The Liberator, 1849

Source Notes

§ In 1656, Elizabeth Key (born of a White father and an enslaved Black mother) became the first Black woman in North America to sue for her freedom and win. Soon after, in 1662, the legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem was passed by the General Assembly of Virginia and spread throughout the remaining 13 colonies.

2.11 Faith and Song Among Free and Enslaved African Americans

My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass, 1855

Contemporary gospel performance of “Steal Away” by Shirley Caesar and Michelle Williams (video)

Lyrics of “Steal Away,” mid-19th century

SOURCES

§ My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass, 1855

§ Contemporary gospel performance of “Steal Away”

§ Lyrics of “Steal Away,” mid-19th century

Source Notes

§ Enslaved people maintained a range of spiritual beliefs, including African-derived beliefs, syncretic forms of Christianity, and Islam. For enslaved Afro-descendants, Christianity animated political action and justified African Americans’ pursuit of liberation.

§ African performative elements are present in the ring shout found among the Gullah Geechee community in Georgia and South Carolina.

§ “Steal Away” was documented and composed by Wallace Willis, a formerly enslaved Black person in Choctaw territory in Mississippi who was displaced to Oklahoma territory during the Trail of Tears.

2.12 Music, Art, and Creativity in African Diasporic Cultures

Gourd head banjo, c. 1859

Storage jar by David Drake, 1858 1C 2B 1

SOURCES

§ Gourd head banjo, c. 1859

§ Storage jar by David Drake, 1858

Source Notes

§ Despite bans on literacy for African Americans, David Drake, an enslaved potter in South Carolina, exercised creative expression by inscribing short poems on the jars he created on a range of topics including love, family, spirituality, and slavery.

2.13 Black Pride, Identity, and the Question of Naming

Selections of letters written to newspapers from Call and Response, 1831–1841

SOURCES

§ Selections of letters written to newspapers from Call and Response, 1831–1841 (pp. 87–89, includes letters from various named and anonymous authors that were originally published between 1831 and 1841 including Freedom’s Journal, The Liberator, The Colored American, and the Minutes of the Fifth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color in the United States)

Source Notes

§ Beginning in the 1830s, African Americans began to hold political meetings, known as Colored Conventions, across the U.S. and Canada. These meetings foregrounded their shared heritage and housed debates about identity and self-identification in African American communities.

Instructional Focus: Radical Resistance and Revolt

2.14 The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose

Letter from Governor of Florida to His Majesty, 1739

Excerpt from an Account of the Stono Rebellion, 1739

Fort Mose Artifacts

Watercolor of Fort Mose

SOURCES

§ Letter from Governor of Florida to His Majesty, 1739

§ Excerpt from an Account of the Stono Rebellion, 1739 (first paragraph)

§ Fort Mose Artifacts, Florida Museum of Natural History

§ Watercolor of Fort Mose, Florida Museum of Natural History

Source Notes

§ The full name of the Florida town established in 1738 was Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose.

§ The names of African-born leaders like Francisco Menéndez and Jemmy reflect the names they acquired as enslaved people in Spanish and British colonies.

§ Many of the enslaved people participating in the Stono Rebellion were from the Kingdom of Kongo (present-day Angola), and they were Portuguese speakers familiar with Catholicism.

2.15 Legacies of the Haitian Revolution

The Preliminary Declaration from the Constitution of Haiti, 1805

Frederick Douglass’s lecture on Haiti at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893

L’Ouverture, 1986, To Preserve Their Freedom, 1988, and Strategy, 1994, from The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture series by Jacob Lawrence

SOURCES

§ The Preliminary Declaration from the Constitution of Haiti, 1805

§ Frederick Douglass’s lecture on Haiti at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893

§ L’Ouverture, 1986, To Preserve Their Freedom, 1988, and Strategy, 1994, from The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture series by Jacob Lawrence

Source Notes

§ Article 14 of the 1805 Haitian Constitution reversed prevailing functions of racial categories in the Atlantic world, in which “Black” often signified an outsider or noncitizen. Instead, it declared all citizens of Haiti to be Black. By uniting the multiethnic residents of the island under a single racial category, it removed ethno-racial distinctions and reframed Black as an identity that signified citizenship and belonging.

§ Frederick Douglass was appointed General Consul and U.S. Minister to Haiti (1889–1891) by President Benjamin Harrison.

2.16 Resistance and Revolts in the U.S.

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rufus King, 1802

SOURCES

§ Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rufus King, 1802

2.17 Black Organizing in the North: Freedom, Women’s Rights, and Education

“Why Sit Here and Die” by Maria W. Stewart, 1832

SOURCES

§ “Why Sit Here and Die” by Maria W. Stewart, 1832

Instructional Focus: Resistance Strategies, Part 1

2.18 Maroon Societies and Autonomous Black Communities

Leonard Parkinson, a Captain of the Maroons, 1796

Maroon War in Jamaica, 1834

The Hunted Slaves by Richard Ansdell, 1862

The Maroons in Ambush on the Dromilly Estate in the Parish of Trelawney, Jamaica by F.J. Bourgoin, 1801

SOURCES

§ Leonard Parkinson, a Captain of the Maroons, 1796

§ Maroon War in Jamaica, 1834 § The Hunted Slaves by Richard Ansdell, 1862

§ The Maroons in Ambush on the Dromilly Estate in the Parish of Trelawney, Jamaica by F.J. Bourgoin, 1801

Source Notes

§ Quilombo comes from the word kilombo (war camp) in Kimbundu, a Bantu language in West Central Africa. In 17th-century Angola, Queen Njinga created a kilombo, which was a sanctuary community for enslaved runaways where she offered military training for defense against the Portuguese.

2.19 Diasporic Connections: Slavery and Freedom in Brazil

Escravo Africano - Mina and Escrava Africano - Mina by José Christiano de Freitas Henriques Junior, 1864

Festival of Our Lady of the Rosario, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by Carlos Julião, c. 1770

SOURCES

§ Escravo Africano - Mina and Escrava Africano - Mina by José Christiano de Freitas Henriques Junior, 1864, www.slaveryimages.org

§ Festival of Our Lady of the Rosario, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by Carlos Julião, c. 1770, www.slaveryimages.org

Source Notes

§ The source photographs portray enslaved people who arrived in Brazil as children, likely during the collapse of the Oyo Empire (Nigeria) in the early 1830s.

§ The drawings display the diversity of labor forms, from marketers to medical work, and a festival by the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary, which speaks to the ways enslaved people in Brazil recreated Afro-Catholic customs from West Central Africa.

2.20 African Americans in Indigenous Territory

Arkansas Petition for Freedmen’s Rights, 1869

Abraham, a Black Seminole leader, 1863

Gopher John, a Black Seminole leader and interpreter, 1863

Diary entry recounting the capture of 41 Black Seminoles by Gen. Thomas Sidney Jesup, 1836

SOURCES

§ Arkansas Petition for Freedmen’s Rights, 1869

§ Abraham, a Black Seminole leader, 1863

§ Gopher John, a Black Seminole leader and interpreter, 1863

§ Diary entry recounting the capture of 41 Black Seminoles by Gen. Thomas Sidney Jesup, 1836

2.21 Emigration and Colonization

The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered by Martin R. Delany, 1852

“Emigration to Mexico” by “A Colored Female of Philadelphia” The Liberator, 1832

SOURCES

§ The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered by Martin R. Delany, 1852

§ “Emigration to Mexico” by “A Colored Female of Philadelphia,” The Liberator, 1832, from Call and Response

Source Notes

§ The 19th-century movement for African American emigration among Black abolitionists was distinct from the American Colonization Society, a White-led organization that drove earlier attempts to colonize parts of Africa in order to relocate free Black people from the U.S. Through emigration, African Americans envisioned a new homeland beyond the reach of racism and slavery.

§ Martin Delany was one of the first African Americans to publish a novel, and as a major in the Union Army, he became the first Black field officer in the U.S. Army.

§ Paul Cuffee was the first person to take African Americans from the U.S. to Africa. In 1815, he took 39 African Americans to the British Black settlement of Freetown in Sierra Leone, where some of the Black Loyalists during the Revolutionary War were taken by the British after their defeat.

2.22 Anti-Emigrationism: Transatlantic Abolitionism and Belonging in America

“West India Emancipation” by Frederick Douglass, 1857

“’What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass’s Speech,” 2020 (video)

SOURCES

§ “West India Emancipation” by Frederick Douglass, 1857

§ “’What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass’s Speech,” 2020 (video, 6:59)

Source Notes

§ Frederick Douglass’s ideas about how American slavery should end changed throughout the 19th century; before the Civil War started, he went from advocating nonviolent resistance to accepting violence as a likely necessity for the overthrow of slavery.

§ In the West India emancipation speech (1857), Frederick Douglass spoke the famous line, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” He encouraged his audience to hold fast to the hope for abolition and racial harmony and to stay committed to struggle, either by words or actions.

Instructional Focus: Resistance Strategies, Part 2

2.23 Radical Resistance

Appeal by David Walker, 1829

“An Address to the Slaves of the United States” by Henry Highland Garnet, 1843

SOURCES

§ Appeal by David Walker, 1829

§ “An Address to the Slaves of the United States” by Henry Highland Garnet, 1843

Source Notes

§ David Walker addressed his Appeal to the larger African diaspora and rejected the idea of emigration to Africa. He wrote to counter Thomas Jefferson’s arguments in Notes on the State of Virginia—namely that African Americans were inferior by nature, benefitted from slavery, were incapable of self-government, and, if freed, should emigrate.

§ Henry Highland Garnet came to support African American emigration in the mid-19th century. He helped establish the Cuban Anti-Slavery Society in New York (1872) and was appointed U.S. minister to Liberia after the Civil War.

§ Henry Highland Garnet’s wife, Julia Williams Garnet, was also a leading abolitionist. She coauthored his famous speech and founded an industrial school for girls in Jamaica.

2.24 Race to the Promised Land: Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad

Freedom on the Move: Rediscovering the Stories of Self-Liberating People (teacher choice of advertisements)

Excerpt from Harriet, the Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford, 1886

Harriet Tubman’s reflection in The Refugee by Benjamin Drew, 185

SOURCES

§ Freedom on the Move: Rediscovering the Stories of Self-Liberating People (teacher choice of advertisements)

§ Excerpt from Harriet, the Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford, 1886 (p. 27–29)

§ Harriet Tubman’s reflection in The Refugee by Benjamin Drew, 1856 (p. 30)

Source Notes

§ The Underground Railroad was large; early portrayals suggesting its influence was limited were not accurate. Surviving visual and textual sources about a covert process must be read critically against the factors that mediate them. Enslaved people’s determination to free themselves fueled the success of the Underground Railroad, as they took the first step toward freedom.

§ Harriet, Moses of Her People is based on interviews with Harriet Tubman; however, the author took creative license to describe Tubman’s speech using dialect. The Refugee is the only known text to capture Tubman’s speech directly

2.25 Legacies of Courage in African American Art and Photography

I Go to Prepare a Place for You by Bisa Butler, 2021

Photographs of Harriet Tubman throughout her life: carte-de-visite, 1868–1869; matte collodion print, 1871–1876; albumen print, c. 1908

SOURCES

§ I Go To Prepare A Place For You by Bisa Butler, 2021

§ Photographs of Harriet Tubman throughout her life: carte-de-visite, 1868–1869; matte collodion print, 1871–1876; albumen print, c. 1908

Instructional Focus: Abolition and the War for Freedom

2.26 Gender and Resistance in Slave Narratives

Excerpts from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs, 1860

Excerpt from The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave by Mary Prince, 1831

SOURCES

§ Excerpts from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs, 1860 (sections V–VIII, XIV, XXI)

§ Excerpt from The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave by Mary Prince, 1831

Source Notes § Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861) became the first narrative published by an enslaved African American woman.

2.27 The Civil War and Black Communities

“The Colored Soldiers” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1895

Washerwoman for the Union Army in Richmond, VA, 1860s;

Photograph of Charles Remond Douglass, 1864

SOURCES

§ “The Colored Soldiers” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1895

§ Civil War era photographs: Washerwoman for the Union Army in Richmond, VA, 1860s; or Photograph of Charles Remond Douglass, 1864

Source Notes

§ Black soldiers served in every American military initiative, including well before they were eligible for American citizenship. The recruitment of Black soldiers into the military was written into the Emancipation Proclamation.

§ Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem was written after the Civil War to honor Black soldiers, and to counter narratives that minimized their participation in the conflict and ignored the stakes of the war for Black liberty and citizenship

2.28 Freedom Days: Commemorating the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom

General Order 3 issued by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, 1865

Juneteenth celebration in Louisville, 2021

Juneteenth celebration in West Philadelphia, 2019

Juneteenth celebration in Galveston, 2021

SOURCES

§ General Order 3 issued by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, 1865

§ Juneteenth celebration in Louisville, 2021

§ Juneteenth celebration in West Philadelphia, 2019

§ Juneteenth celebration in Galveston, 2021

Unit 3: The Practice of Freedom (5 Weeks)

* Reconstruction and Black Politics

* The Color Line: Black Life in the Nadir

* Racial Uplift

* The New Negro Renaissance

* Migrations and Black Internationalism

Unit 4: Movements and Debates (7 Weeks)

* Anticolonial Movements and the Early Black Freedom Movement

* The Long Civil Rights Movement

* Black Power and Black Pride

* Black Women’s Voices in Society and Leadership

* Diversity Within Black Communities

* Identity, Culture, and Connection

Compare the Frameworks

You can download the pdfs of the Feb 2022 (82 pages) framework and the censored final version (324 pages) released in 2023.

You can also look section by section at the Unit and Topic names and the sources mentioned within to see the changes that there were done.

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The AP African American Course

List of the books and authors on the original College Board's AP African American

The Reading Sources

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You can see which sources were added or subtracted through the revision.

The Learning Program

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