Fiveable
โœŠ๐ŸฟAP African American Studies
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โœŠ๐ŸฟAP African American Studies

Document-Based Question (DBQ)
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Practice FRQ 1 of 421/42
1. Evaluate the extent to which African Americans exercised agency and self-determination in challenging oppression and asserting their identity from the antebellum period through the mid-twentieth century.

In your response you should do the following:

  • Respond to the prompt with a defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning.
  • Describe a broader historical or disciplinary context relevant to the topic of the prompt.
  • Support an argument in response to the prompt using at least three of the sources.
  • Use at least one additional piece of specific evidence (beyond that found in the sources) relevant to your argument.
  • For at least two sources, explain how or why the perspective, purpose, context, and/or audience for each source is relevant to your argument.
  • Reference or cite the sources you use in your argument. You can reference or cite the source letter, title, or author.

Document 1

Source: Sketches of the Captive Survivors from the Amistad Trial, 1839
Document 1

Document 2

Source: Picture Postcard of a North Carolina Convict Camp, Circa 1910
Document 2

Document 3

Source: Major Charity E. Adams and Captain Mary Kearney Inspect Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in England, 1945
Document 3

Document 4

Source: Alain Locke, a scholar in New York City, article about a cultural shift published in Survey Graphic magazine, March 1925
The migrant masses, shifting from countryside to city, hurdle several generations of experience at a leap, but more important, the same thing happens spiritually in the lifeattitudes and self-expression of the Young Negro, in his poetry, his art, his education and his new outlook, with the additional advantage, of course, of the poise 1 and greater certainty of knowing what it is all about.... To all of this the New Negro is keenly responsive as an augury 2 of a new democracy in American culture.... He now becomes a conscious contributor and lays aside the status of a beneficiary and ward 3 for that of a collaborator and participant in American civilization. The great social gain in this is the releasing of our talented group from the arid 4 fields of controversy and debate to the productive fields of creative expression.

Document 5

Source: Segregated Restrooms, Circa 1960
Document 5
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