Specification points

College Board AP African American Studies african-american-studies

232 points in 4 topics, with College Board's codes and titles.

Codes and titles are read by a script from College Board's published specification and have not been checked by a person. What each point covers is in the specification itself: College Board’s specification.

1 Origins of the African Diaspora

1.1 What Is African American Studies?
1.1.A Defining features of African American Studies
1.1.B How African American Studies entered US universities, 1960s-70s
1.1.C African American Studies, early Africa and the diaspora
1.2 The African Continent: A Varied Landscape
1.2.A Geography of the African continent
1.2.B Landscape, settlement and trade across African regions
1.3 Population Growth and Ethnolinguistic Diversity
1.3.A Causes of the Bantu expansion
1.3.B Effects of the Bantu expansion on language and heritage
1.4 Africa’s Ancient Societies
1.4.A Complex societies of ancient East and West Africa
1.4.B Significance of ancient African societies to Black communities
1.5 The Sudanic Empires: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai
1.5.A Gold, trade and the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai
1.5.B How Mali's wealth extended its reach
1.5.C Sudanic empires and early African Americans
1.6 Learning Traditions
1.6.A Models of education in early West Africa
1.7 Indigenous Cosmologies and Religious Syncretism
1.7.A Syncretic practices carried from Africa to the Americas
1.8 Culture and Trade in Southern and East Africa
1.8.A Great Zimbabwe's stone architecture
1.8.B Rise and fall of the Swahili Coast city-states
1.9 West Central Africa: The Kingdom of Kongo
1.9.A Christianity in the Kingdom of Kongo
1.9.B Kongo, Portugal and the transatlantic slave trade
1.9.C Kongo's Christian culture and early African Americans
1.10 Kinship and Political Leadership
1.10.A Kinship and women's roles in early West and Central Africa
1.10.B Comparing Queen Idia and Queen Njinga as leaders
1.10.C Legacy of Queen Idia and Queen Njinga
1.11 Global Africans
1.11.A African-European contact before the transatlantic slave trade
1.11.B Portuguese enslaved labour and slave economies in the Americas

2 Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance

2.1 African Explorers in the Americas
2.1.A Ladinos: the first Africans in the future United States
2.1.B African roles in 16th-century colonisation of the Americas
2.2 Departure Zones in Africa and the Slave Trade to the United States
2.2.A Scale and scope of the transatlantic slave trade
2.2.B The main slave-trading zones in Africa
2.2.C African ethnic groups and African American communities
2.3 Capture and the Impact of the Slave Trade on West African Societies
2.3.A The three-part journey of enslaved Africans
2.3.B How the slave trade destabilised West African societies
2.3.C Narratives by formerly enslaved Africans
2.4 African Resistance on Slave Ships and the Antislavery Movement
2.4.A Resistance during the Middle Passage
2.4.B Slave ship diagrams
2.4.C Shipboard resistance and diagrams as inspiration for abolitionists
2.5 Slave Auctions and the Domestic Slave Trade
2.5.A Slave auctions in the 19th-century South
2.5.B African American writing on slave auctions and abolition
2.5.C The cotton industry and displaced enslaved families
2.6 Labor, Culture, and Economy
2.6.A Specialised roles performed by enslaved people
2.6.B Slave labour and African American music and language
2.6.C Economic effects of enslaved people's labour
2.7 Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases
2.7.A American law and African Americans' rights, 1600s-1800s
2.7.B Slave codes as a response to resistance
2.8 The Social Construction of Race and the Reproduction of Status
2.8.A Partus sequitur ventrem and racial classification
2.8.B How racial categories emerged alongside status
2.9 Creating African American Culture
2.9.A African American self-expression in art, music and language
2.9.B African musical elements and American musical genres
2.9.C Functions and significance of spirituals
2.10 Black Pride, Identity, and the Question of Naming
2.10.A Terms African Americans used to identify themselves
2.11 The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose
2.11.A Effects of asylum in Spanish Florida
2.12 Legacies of the Haitian Revolution
2.12.A Global impacts of the Haitian Revolution
2.12.B Maroons in the Haitian Revolution
2.12.C The Haitian Revolution and Black political thought
2.13 Resistance and Revolts in the United States
2.13.A Everyday resistance by enslaved and free African Americans
2.13.B Revolts and abolitionist organising across the Americas
2.14 Black Organizing in the North: Freedom, Women’s Rights, and Education
2.14.A Free Black community organising in the North and South
2.14.B Techniques of Black women activists
2.14.C Significance of Black women's activism
2.15 Maroon Societies and Autonomous Black Communities
2.15.A Maroon communities across the African diaspora
2.15.B Purposes of maroon wars
2.16 Diasporic Connections: Slavery and Freedom in Brazil
2.16.A Enslavement of Africans in Brazil
2.16.B Enslaved populations in Brazil and the US, 19th century
2.17 African Americans in Indigenous Territory
2.17.A Slavery's expansion and Black-Indigenous relations
2.18 Debates About Emigration, Colonization, and Belonging in America
2.18.A Emigrationists and Black self-determination
2.18.B Transatlantic abolitionism and anti-emigrationist views
2.19 Black Political Thought: Radical Resistance
2.19.A Radical 19th-century resistance strategies
2.20 Race to the Promised Land: Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad
2.20.A The Underground Railroad
2.20.B Harriet Tubman's contributions to abolition
2.21 Legacies of Resistance in African American Art and Photography
2.21.A Visual depictions of African American leaders
2.22 Gender and Resistance in Slave Narratives
2.22.A Enslaved women's resistance to sexual violence
2.22.B Gender and 19th-century slave narratives
2.22.C Black women's enslavement narratives and political movements
2.23 The Civil War and Black Communities
2.23.A African American contributions during the Civil War
2.23.B Black soldiers' reasons for enlisting and inequities they faced
2.23.C Effects of Black soldiers' service on Black communities
2.24 Freedom Days: Commemorating the Ongoing Struggle for Freedom
2.24.A Events that ended legal enslavement in the US
2.24.B Significance of Juneteenth

3 The Practice of Freedom

3.1 The Reconstruction Amendments
3.1.A The Reconstruction Amendments and citizenship
3.1.B The Fifteenth Amendment and African American political participation
3.2 Social Life: Reuniting Black Families and the Freedmen’s Bureau
3.2.A Purpose of the Freedmen's Bureau
3.2.B Rebuilding family bonds after abolition
3.3 Black Codes, Land, and Labor
3.3.A How Black Codes held back African Americans
3.3.B Labour practices that blocked economic progress after abolition
3.4 The Defeat of Reconstruction
3.4.A Dismantling of Reconstruction reforms
3.5 Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow Laws
3.5.A Impact of Jim Crow laws
3.5.B Writers and activists responding to racism during the nadir
3.6 White Supremacist Violence and the Red Summer
3.6.A Causes of early 20th-century racial violence
3.6.B Responses to white supremacist attacks
3.7 The Color Line and Double Consciousness in American Society
3.7.A Dunbar, Du Bois and portrayals of Black humanity
3.8 Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women’s Rights and Leadership
3.8.A Strategies for racial uplift around 1900
3.8.B Black women and African American advancement
3.9 Black Organizations and Institutions
3.9.A Community economic stability in the early 20th century
3.10 HBCUs, Black Greek Letter Organizations, and Black Education
3.10.A Founding of historically Black colleges and universities
3.10.B Impact of HBCUs on African American lives
3.11 The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
3.11.A The New Negro movement: self-definition, pride and innovation
3.12 Photography and Social Change
3.12.A Visual media and social change
3.13 Envisioning Africa in Harlem Renaissance Poetry
3.13.A Harlem Renaissance poets and Africa
3.14 Symphony in Black: Black Performance in Music, Theater, and Film
3.14.A African American contributions to music, 1930s-40s
3.14.B African American contributions to theatre and film, 1930s-40s
3.15 Black History Education and African American Studies
3.15.A Researching and teaching Black history to Black students
3.15.B The Black intellectual tradition before African American Studies
3.16 The Great Migration
3.16.A Causes of the Great Migration
3.16.B Impact of the Great Migration
3.17 Afro-Caribbean Migration
3.17.A Reasons for Black Caribbean migration to the US
3.17.B Effects of Afro-Caribbean migration on African American communities
3.18 The Universal Negro Improvement Association
3.18.A Mission and methods of the UNIA
3.18.B Marcus Garvey, the UNIA and diasporic political thought

4 Movements and Debates

4.1 The Négritude and Negrismo Movements
4.1.A The Négritude and Negrismo movements
4.1.B Négritude and Negrismo critiques of colonialism
4.2 Anticolonialism and Black Political Thought
4.2.A The 20th-century Black Freedom movement
4.2.B Examples of diasporic solidarity
4.2.C African American and African solidarity and Black politics
4.3 African Americans in World War II: Double V and the G.I. Bill
4.3.A African American involvement in World War II
4.3.B Emergence of the Double V Campaign
4.3.C African American access to G.I. Bill benefits
4.4 Discrimination, Segregation, and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
4.4.A Segregation and discrimination in daily life, early 20th century
4.4.B Rationale for Brown v. Board of Education
4.4.C Responses to school integration after Brown
4.5 Redlining and Housing Discrimination
4.5.A Long-term effects of housing discrimination
4.6 Major Civil Rights Organizations
4.6.A Methods of the major civil rights organisations
4.6.B Nonviolent resistance in the Civil Rights movement
4.6.C Civil rights activism and federal legislation
4.7 Black Women’s Leadership and Grassroots Organizing in the Civil Rights Movement
4.7.A Black women leaders in the Civil Rights movement
4.7.B Grassroots civil rights organising beyond the South
4.8 The Arts, Music, and Politics of Freedom
4.8.A Artists and musicians advocating for racial equality
4.8.B Faith and music in the Civil Rights movement
4.9 Black Religious Nationalism and the Black Power Movement
4.9.A Origins and beliefs of the Nation of Islam
4.9.B From civil rights to Black Power
4.10 The Black Arts Movement
4.10.A The Black Arts movement and Black culture
4.10.B The Black Arts movement and African American Studies
4.11 The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
4.11.A Reforms pursued by the Black Panther Party
4.12 Black Is Beautiful and Afrocentricity
4.12.A Black is Beautiful and Afrocentricity
4.12.B Influence of Black is Beautiful and Afrocentricity on culture
4.12.C Black is Beautiful, Afrocentricity and ethnic studies
4.13 The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality
4.13.A Black feminism and earlier Black women's activism
4.14 Interlocking Systems of Oppression
4.14.A Interlocking systems of oppression
4.14.B Interlocking oppression in Black writing
4.15 Economic Growth and Black Political Representation
4.15.A Economic growth in Black communities since 1950
4.15.B The Voting Rights Act and Black political representation
4.15.C Advances in Black federal political leadership
4.16 Demographic and Religious Diversity in Contemporary Black Communities
4.16.A Growth and diversity of the African American population since 2000
4.16.B Roles of religion and faith in African American communities
4.17 The Evolution of African American Music: From Spirituals to Hip-Hop
4.17.A African traditions in African American music
4.17.B Influence of African American music on global genres
4.17.C Origins and elements of hip-hop culture
4.18 Black Life in Theater, TV, and Film
4.18.A African American representation on stage and screen
4.18.B Migration, economic growth and African Americans on screen
4.19 African Americans and Sports
4.19.A Contributions of Black athletes since the 19th century
4.19.B Black athletes challenging discrimination
4.20 Science, Medicine, and Technology in Black Communities
4.20.A African American contributions to science and technology
4.20.B African American contributions to medicine
4.20.C Discrimination against Black people with disabilities
4.21 Black Studies, Black Futures, and Afrofuturism
4.21.A African American Studies and interdisciplinary scholarship
4.21.B Afrofuturism