AP African American Studies Cheat Sheet Flashcards

A comprehensive vocabulary set covering the four main units of the AP African American Studies course, including key figures, legal cases, and cultural movements.

African American Studies

An interdisciplinary field spanning history, literature, art, sociology, and political science, organized around four themes: Migration & Diaspora, Identity, Creativity/Arts, and Resistance & Resilience.

Bantu migrations

The movement of people across sub-Saharan Africa that spread languages, agriculture, and iron technology.

Nok

An ancient society existing from 900 BCE–200 CE known for its terracotta works.

Ghana Empire

An empire based on the gold-salt trade that grew wealthy by taxing merchants.

Mansa Musa

A famous leader of the Mali Empire associated with the learning center of Timbuktu.

Griots

Oral historians, such as those who preserve the Sundiata epic regarding the founding of Mali.

Nzinga Mbemba

The leader of the Kongo who wrote a letter to Portugal in 1526 documenting the negative impact of the slave trade.

Queen Idia of Benin

A powerful leader whose ivory mask became the symbol for FESTAC '77.

Juan Garrido

The first documented African explorer in the Americas, who traveled with the Spanish in 1538.

Phillis Wheatley

The first published Black poet, who wrote "On Being Brought from Africa" in 1773.

Amistad (1839)

A revolt led by Cinqué that resulted in the Supreme Court freeing the captives; it became a key symbol for abolition.

Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)

The deadliest slave revolt in US history, which led to harsher and more restrictive slave codes in the South.

VA Act XII (1662)

A Virginia law establishing that enslaved status follows the mother, creating a racial caste system.

Dred Scott (1857)

A Supreme Court case ruling that Black people were not citizens and had no rights.

Stono Rebellion (1739)

An uprising in South Carolina where approximately 100 enslaved people marched toward Spanish Florida seeking freedom.

Fort Mose (1738)

The first free Black settlement in North America, established by the Spanish in Florida.

Haitian Revolution (1791–1804)

Led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, it is noted as the only successful slave revolution in history.

Maria Stewart

The first American woman to give a public political speech in 1832.

David Walker’s Appeal (1829)

A radical document calling for immediate abolition and resistance to enslavement.

Black Seminoles

People who self-liberated and allied with Indigenous nations to fight against U.S. removal.

13th Amendment (1865)

The amendment that abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime.

14th Amendment (1868)

The amendment that established birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law.

Freedmen's Bureau

An organization established in 1865 to aid in family reunification, education, and labor contracts for formerly enslaved people.

Sharecropping

An exploitative agricultural system that replaced slavery and kept Black farmers in debt-peonage through crop-lien laws.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

The Supreme Court case that legalized segregation under the

Double consciousness

A concept from W.E.B. Du Bois's Souls of Black Folk (1903) describing the internal conflict of the Black identity.

The Talented Tenth

W.E.B. Du Bois's concept advocating for liberal arts education for Black leaders, often contrasted with Booker T. Washington’s focus on industrial education.

Carter G. Woodson

The author of Mis-Education of the Negro (1933) and founder of Negro History Week.

Alain Locke

The author of The New Negro (1925), which served as a manifesto for cultural self-determination during the Harlem Renaissance.

UNIA

A pan-African movement led by Marcus Garvey with the slogan "Africa for Africans."

Double V Campaign

A 1942 movement advocating for victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home.

6888th Battalion

The only all-Black, all-female unit to serve in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Redlining

The use of HOLC maps starting in 1937 to deny mortgages to Black neighborhoods, fueling the wealth gap.

Intersectionality

A term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe overlapping systems of oppression.

Combahee River Collective (1977)

A Black feminist group that coined the term "identity politics."