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AP African American Studies
12 sections available · 80 chapters available
Free AP African American Studies study notes for AP (Advanced Placement) students. Each chapter breaks down a key concept with examples and practice prompts you can turn into AI drills in the thinka app.
Unit 1A: African Societies, Landscapes, and the Discipline
1.1 What Is African American Studies?
1.2 The African Continent: A Varied Landscape
1.3 Population Growth and Ethnolinguistic Diversity
1.4 Africa's Ancient Societies
1.5 The Sudanic Empires: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai
1.6 Learning Traditions
Unit 1B: Cosmologies, Kingdoms, and Global Africans
1.7 Indigenous Cosmologies and Religious Syncretism
1.8 Culture and Trade in Southern and East Africa
1.9 West Central Africa: The Kingdom of Kongo
1.10 Kinship and Political Leadership
1.11 Global Africans
Unit 2A: The Slave Trade, Capture, and the Domestic Trade
2.1 African Explorers in the Americas
2.2 Departure Zones in Africa and the Slave Trade to the United States
2.3 Capture and the Impact of the Slave Trade on West African Societies
2.4 African Resistance on Slave Ships and the Antislavery Movement
2.5 Slave Auctions and the Domestic Slave Trade
2.6 Labor, Culture, and Economy
2.7 Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases
2.8 The Social Construction of Race and the Reproduction of Status
Unit 2B: Culture, Identity, and Early Revolts
2.9 Creating African American Culture
2.10 Black Pride, Identity, and the Question of Naming
2.11 The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose
2.12 Legacies of the Haitian Revolution
2.13 Resistance and Revolts in the United States
2.14 Black Organizing in the North: Freedom, Women's Rights, and Education
2.15 Maroon Societies and Autonomous Black Communities
2.16 Diasporic Connections: Slavery and Freedom in Brazil
Unit 2C: Abolition, Resistance, and the Civil War
2.17 African Americans in Indigenous Territory
2.18 Debates About Emigration, Colonization, and Belonging in America
2.19 Black Political Thought: Radical Resistance
2.20 Race to the Promised Land: Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad
2.21 Legacies of Resistance in African American Art and Photography
2.22 Gender and Resistance in Slave Narratives
2.23 The Civil War and Black Communities
2.24 Freedom Days: Commemorating the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom
Unit 3A: Reconstruction and Its Defeat
3.1 The Reconstruction Amendments
3.2 Social Life: Reuniting Black Families and the Freedmen's Bureau
3.3 Black Codes, Land, and Labor
3.4 The Defeat of Reconstruction
3.5 Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow Laws
3.6 White Supremacist Violence and the Red Summer
Unit 3B: The Color Line, Uplift, and Black Institutions
3.7 The Color Line and Double Consciousness in American Society
3.8 Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women's Rights and Leadership
3.9 Black Organizations and Institutions
3.10 HBCUs, Black Greek Letter Organizations, and Black Education
3.11 The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
3.12 Photography and Social Change
Unit 3C: Harlem Renaissance and Migrations
3.13 Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry
3.14 Symphony in Black: Black Performance in Music, Theater, and Film
3.15 Black History Education and African American Studies
3.16 The Great Migration
3.17 Afro-Caribbean Migration
3.18 The Universal Negro Improvement Association
Unit 4A: Diaspora Movements and the Civil Rights Era
4.1 The Negritude and Negrismo Movements
4.2 Anticolonialism and Black Political Thought
4.3 African Americans and the Second World War: The Double V Campaign and the G.I. Bill
4.4 Discrimination, Segregation, and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
4.5 Redlining and Housing Discrimination
4.6 Major Civil Rights Organizations
4.7 Black Women's Leadership and Grassroots Organizing in the Civil Rights Movement
Unit 4B: Black Power, Arts, and Black Feminist Thought
4.8 The Arts, Music, and the Politics of Freedom
4.9 Black Religious Nationalism and the Black Power Movement
4.10 The Black Arts Movement
4.11 The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
4.12 Black Is Beautiful and Afrocentricity
4.13 The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality
4.14 Interlocking Systems of Oppression
Unit 4C: Contemporary Black Communities, Culture, and Futures
4.15 Economic Growth and Black Political Representation
4.16 Demographic and Religious Diversity in Contemporary Black Communities
4.17 The Evolution of African American Music: From Spirituals to Hip-Hop
4.18 Black Life in Theater, TV, and Film
4.19 African Americans and Sports
4.20 Science, Medicine, and Technology in Black Communities
4.21 Black Studies, Black Futures, and Afrofuturism
Exam Skills and Task Types
Source analysis: written and literary texts
Source analysis: images, art, and material culture
Source analysis: maps, charts, tables, and data
Short-answer question technique
Document-based question: thesis, context, and evidence
Argumentation across units: causation, comparison, and continuity
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