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African American History is an interdisciplinary course that examines the diversity of African-American experiences through direct encounters with authentic and varied sources. Students explore key topics that extend from early African kingdoms to the ongoing challenges and achievements of the contemporary moment.
Given the interdisciplinary character of African-American studies, students in the course will develop skills across multiple fields, emphasizing historical, literary, visual, and data analysis skills.
This course foregrounds a study of the diversity of Black communities in the United States within the broader context of Africa and the African diaspora.
Course Goals
Course Goals
Throughout this course, students will learn to:
§ Apply lenses from multiple disciplines to evaluate key concepts, historical developments, and processes that have shaped Black experiences and debates within the field of African-American studies.
§ Identify connections between Black communities in the United States and the broader African diaspora in the past and present.
§ Compare and analyze a range of perspectives about the movements, approaches, organizations, and key figures involved in freedom movements, as expressed in text-based, data, and visual sources.
§ Demonstrate understanding of the diversity and complexity of African societies and their global connections before the emergence of transatlantic slavery.
§ Evaluate major social movements' political, historical, aesthetic, and transnational contexts.
§ Develop a broad understanding of the many strategies African American communities have employed to represent themselves authentically, promote advancement, and combat the effects of inequality.
§ Identify significant themes that inform literary and artistic traditions of the African diaspora
African American History is a story I desperately want to learn.
We will start with guiding questions and read and discuss sources. If you don’t like to read, we will do so together.
Now, if you like reading but aren’t very confident with it (or writing), don’t worry. That IS where I, as the teacher, come in.
Together, we will strengthen your reading comprehension and extended response. (writing)
This is why this class will be mostly inquiry-based.
You and the documents are the most critical aspects of the class.
Students must read, think, and write like historians during this class.
Collaborative Course Communities
Collaborative Course Communities
AP African American Studies - Collegeboard x The DBQ Project x ActivClassroom
Unveiling the Untold Stories: Philosophy with the 4 Podcast for AFAM
Journey through @BH365 Black Freedom AAH Timeline Mural
Units and Timeframe
Units and Timeframe
23/24 Tentative BH365 Timeframe 10 units
23/24 Tentative BH365 Timeframe 10 units
(4 x 9 week quarters/2 Semesters@36 weeks)
(4 x 9 week quarters/2 Semesters@36 weeks)
Syllabus & Pre-Test [1 week]
Unit 1: Ancient Africa Chp 1, 2: [2 weeks]
Unit 2: Transatlantic Slave Trade Chp 3, 4 [3 weeks]
Unit 3: Chp 5, 6: [3 weeks]
END of First Grading Period
Unit 4: Chp 7-10 [7 weeks]
Midterm: Units 1 - 4 [1 week]
End of Second Grading Period/1st Semester
Unit 5 Chp 11 - 15 [3 weeks]
Unit 6 Chp 16 - 19 [3 weeks]
Unit 7 Chp 20, 21 [2 weeks]
Unit 8 Chp 22 - 32 [4 weeks]
End of Third Grading Period
Unit 9 50 Stars [1 week]
Unit 10 The North Star: A Guide to Freedom and Opportunity in Canada [1 week]
State Testing/Senior Testing/AP Test/Post Test [3 weeks]
Finals [1 week]
End of 4th Grading Period/End of 2nd Semester
Total: 36 weeks
Collegeboard AP AAH Units by 9-week increments (min timeframe: 28 weeks)
Collegeboard AP AAH Units by 9-week increments (min timeframe: 28 weeks)
Unit# Topics Time period Timeframe
Unit# Topics Time period Timeframe
1st 9 wk Origins of the African Diaspora ~8th century CE – 16th century CE (7 Weeks) [08.21.2023 - 10.12.2023]
2nd 9 wk Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance ~16th century CE – 1865 CE (9 Weeks) [10.13.2023 - 1.3.2024]
3rd 9 wk Practice of Freedom 1865 – 1960s CE (7 Weeks) [1.4.2023 - 02.16.2024]
4th 9 wk Movements and debate 1960s – present (9 weeks) [02.19.2024 - 04.23.2024]
Final Culminating Task State, AP, and Final Project (4 weeks) [04.23.2024 - 05.22.24]
36 Weeks MAX
Spring Break: [03.29.2024 - 04.01.2024]
LEAP Testing Window: 04.19.2024 - 04.26.2024
Course Project (Recommended time: min 3 Weeks)
Final Project: 04.22.24 - 05.17.2024
Senior Exams: 05.01.24 - 05.10.24
Final Exam: 05.13.24 - 05.22.24
AP Collegeboard African American Studies TOPICS
1.1 What Is African American Studies?
1.2The African Continent: A Varied Landscape
1.3 Population Growth and Ethnolinguistic Diversity
1.4 Ancestral Africa: Ancient Societies and African American Studies
1.5 The Sudanic Empires
1.6 Global Visions of the Mali Empire
1.7 Learning Traditions
1.8 Indigenous Cosmologies and Religious Syncretism
1.9 Southem Africa: Great Zimbabwe
1.10 East Africa: Culture and Trade in the Swahili Coast
1.11 West Central Africa: The Kingdom of Kongo
1.12 Kinship and Political Leadership
1.13 Global Africans
2.1 African Explorers in America
2.2 Departure Zones in Africa and the Slave Trade to the LI.S.
2.3 Capture and the Impact of the Slave Trade on West African Societies
2.4 Architecture and Iconography of a Slave Ship
2.5 Resistance on Slave Ships
2.6 Slave Auctions
2.7 The Domestic Slave Trade and Forced Migration
2.8 Labor, Culture and Economy
2.9 Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases
2.10 The Concept of Race and the Reproduction of Status
2.11 Faith and Song Among Free and Enslaved African Americans
212 Music, Arti and Creativity in African Diasporic Cultures
2,13 Black Pride, Identity, and the Question of Naming
2.14 The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose
2.15 Legacies of the Haitian Revolution
2.16 Resistance and Revolts in the I-I,S.
2.17 Black Organizing in the North] Freedom, Women's Rights, and Education
2.18 Maroon Societies and Autonomous Black Communities
2.19 Diasporic Connections: Slavery and Freedom in Brazil
2.20 African Americans in Indigenous Territory
2.21 Emigration and Colonization
2.22 Anti-Emigrationism: Transatlantic Abolitionism and Belonging in America
2.23 Radical Resistance
2.24 Race to the Promised Land: Abolitionism and The Underground Railroad
2.25 Legacies of Resistance in African American Art and Photography
2.26 Gender and Resistance in Slave Narratives
2.27 The Civil War and alack Communities
2.28 Freedom Days: Commemorating the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom
3.1 The Reconstruction Amendments
3.2 Social Life: Reuniting Black Families
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
3.7 The Color Line and Double Consciousness in American Society
3.8 Uplift Ideologies
3.9 Lifting as We Climb: Black Women's Rights and Leadership
3.10 Black Organizations and Institutions
3.11 HBCLIs and alack Education
3.12 The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
3.13 Photography and Social Change
3.14 Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry
3.15 The Birth of Black History
3.16 Genealogy of the Field of African American Studies
3.17 The Great Migration
3.18 Afro-Caribbean Migration
3.19 The Universal Negro Improvement Association
4.1 The Négritude and Negrismo Movements
4.2 Discrimination, Segregation„ and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
4.3 The G.I. Bill, Redlining, and Housing Discrimination
4.4 Major Civil Rights Organizations
4.5 Black Women's Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement
4.6 The Arts and the Politics of Freedom
4.7 Faith and the Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement
4.8 Diasporic Solidarity: African Americans and Decolonization in Africa
4.9 The Black Power Movement
4.10 The Black Panther Party
4.11 Black is Beautiful and the Black Arts Movement
4.12 Black Women and the Movements in the 20th Century
4.13 Overlapping Dimensions of alack Life
4.14 The Grovsth of the Black Middle Class
4.15 Black Political Gains
4.16 Oemographic and Religious Oiversity in Contemporary Black Communities
4.17 The Evolution of African American Music
4.18 Black Achievements in Science, Medicine, and Technology
4.19 Black Studies, alack Futures, and Afrofuturism
Samples Lessons by Units (limited)
Samples Lessons by Units (limited)
Q1.a Africa
Q1.a Africa
Q1.b The Transatlantic Slave Trade
Q1.b The Transatlantic Slave Trade
“Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade” −
Overview: Students explore the geographic, political, and economic factors that contributed to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. −
Learning Objectives:
Students will be able to…
Analyze the power dynamics between European merchants, African tribal leaders, and enslaved Africans during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Describe the basic elements of “triangular economics” and the flow of human laborers, raw materials, and finished goods between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Format: ○ Animated Introduction ○ Interactive Map ○ Knowledge Check ○
Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10/11-12.2, 3, 7, 10
Q2.a: Slavery
Q2.a: Slavery
“Phyllis Wheatley”
− Overview: Students examine the life and work of Phillis Wheatley, her role as a trailblazer in African-American literature, and the challenges she faced as an enslaved woman.
− Learning Objectives: Students will be able to…
○ Identify Phillis Wheatley as the first African-American to publish a book.
○ Evaluate the challenges Wheatley faced from members of society who doubted the authenticity and quality of her work because of her race.
− Activities:
○ Animated Introduction
○ Interactive Photo Gallery
○ Knowledge Check
“Underground Railroad”
− Overview: Students explore the Underground Railroad, and Harriet Tubman’s role as a conductor leading other slaves to freedom.
− Learning Objectives: Students will be able to…
○ Classify the goals and key initiatives of the Abolitionist movement
○ Recognize Harriet Tubman as an enslaved woman who escaped to freedom, then helped hundreds of other slaves find freedom through the Underground Railroad.
○ Describe the terminology and key figures involved in the Underground Railroad.
− Activities:
○ Animated Introduction
○ Interactive Map
○ Knowledge Check
− Standards:
o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10/11-12.2, 3, 7, 10
Q2.b: Emancipation & Reconstruction
Q2.b: Emancipation & Reconstruction
“Frederick Douglass”
− Overview: Students examine an excerpt from Frederick Douglass’s book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave and explore his motivations in learning to read, and teaching other slaves to read and write.
− Learning Objectives: Students will be able to…
○ Interpret in their own words why Douglass saw learning how to read as critical in his seeking freedom.
○ Analyze the legal and social barriers that prevented most slaves from learning to read including literacy laws, threat of discipline from their masters, and a lack of schools or learning materials for slaves.
− Activities:
○ Animated Introduction
○ Interactive Text – Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
Knowledge Check
Q3.a: Reconstruction into Jim Crow
Q3.a: Reconstruction into Jim Crow
“Hiram Revels”
− Overview: Students explore selected political and social issues from the Reconstruction Period through the life and career of Hiram Revels, the first African-American member of the US Senate.
− Learning Objectives: Students will be able to…
○ Recognize Hiram Revels as the first African-American to serve in the US Senate.
○ Evaluate the objection to Revels’ acceptance in the Senate based on the fact that he was not legally a US citizen until the passage of the 14th Amendment.
− Activities:
○ Animated Introduction
○ Interactive Photo Gallery
○ Knowledge Check
− Standards:
o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10/11-12.1, 2, 3, 8, 10
“The Tuskegee Institute”
− Overview: Students explore the life and accomplishments of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver through the Tuskegee Institute.
− Learning Objectives: Students will be able to…
○ Recognize Booker T. Washington as the founder of the Tuskegee Institute.
○ Identify George Washington Carver as a scientist and teacher at Tuskegee who was famous for his innovative approaches to agriculture.
○ Identify the Tuskegee Institute as a historically black university in Tuskegee, Alabama.
− Activities:
○ Animated Introduction
○ Interactive Interview – Booker T. Washington
○ Knowledge Check
− Standards:
o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10/11-12.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10
Q3.b: The Great Migration
Q3.b: The Great Migration
Q4: The Longview of Civil Rights
Q4: The Longview of Civil Rights
“Brown v. Board of Education”
− Overview: Students examine the Brown v. Board of Education case that
ended school segregation, and set in motion the end of Jim Crow laws in
the United States.
− Learning Objectives: Students will be able to…
○ Identify Thurgood Marshall as the lead attorney who argued and
won Brown v. Board of Education, and later the first African-American
Supreme Court Justice.
○ Identify Barbara Johns as a teenage girl who initiated a student
protest that led to a lawsuit against school segregation, and went on
to be part of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
○ Evaluate the impact of the Brown v. Board of Education decision on
schools and other segregated facilities in the United States.
− Activities:
○ Interactive Animated Introduction
○ Interactive Photo Gallery
○ Knowledge Check
− Standards:
o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10/11-12.1, 2, 3, 8, 10
For more information about Curriculum Development (CCSS x AP College Board x BH365)**
CollegeBoard Curriculum
Collegeboard Agenda & Objectives Layout
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