The Department of African American Studies records date from 1999 to 2004 and primarily documents the work of the Department and excludes the earliest years of the Black Studies program and the more recent history of the Department including the name change to the Department of Africology and African American Studies.

Materials in the collection are divided into two main series of materials, Administrative Files and Course Information. Administrative Files series is arranged alphabetically and includes files from Department head Dr. Robert L. Perry, as well as other faculty members in the department although the Faculty subseries is light on teaching, service or research files of the tenured members of the Department faculty.

The Course Information series is also arranged alphabetically with information pertaining to class scheduling, substitutions and those courses offered. The Course Substitutions and Offered Courses subseries are both arranged chronologically and date from 1998 to 2004, the earliest years of an official Department. Offered Courses is limited to 2003 and 2004 and is further subdivided into semesters and then filed by course identification number and title.

The Proposal for the Establishment of the Center for African American Studies is the only substantial documentation from the Department's precursor program then named Black Studies, that offered undergraduate minors. Overall the collection contains little to the earliest years of the program or the last decade of the Department. Many of those files either still reside in the Department or with individual faculty members.