This text is the current phase of a fourteen year project.  It was first developed as a course syllabus-study guide at Fisk University.  At this level, there were three editions and 3,500 copies distributed.  The 4th edition was two volumes, an edited anthology of 1,000 pages.  It went through four printings and 9,000 copies.  The 5th edition brought the text to the current format.  This text is the 6th edition with a first run of 3,000 copies.

I have been the main editor/author of this course since its inception. However, in no way is, this a "single' author text." This text is the collective product of many individuals. Major contributions over the last decade were made by Ronald Bailey, Matyemma Graham, and more recently by Kina McAfee. No contribution has been greater than Aysha - she has the gift to turn the abstract truth into a concrete tool. Special thanks go to Jane Mohraz whose editorial skill was an essential component of our team.

The rigor of classroom use has been an essential ingredient in the development of Introduction to Afro-American Studies. Significant contributions have been made by our many co-teachers, especially: Johnetta Jones (Eastern Illinois University); Warren Swindell (Indiana State University); Carol Adams (Loyola University); Diana Slaughter (North- western University); Ismay Ashford, Charles Evans, and Harold Rogers (Olive Harvey Community College); Daryl Thomas (Sangamon State University); and David Johnson (Thornton Community College).

Special recognition goes to the scholars who participated in a 1982 NE14 summer seminar laboring long and hard on the content of a model course for an introduction to Afro-American Studies: Russell Adams (Howard University), Delores Aldridge (Emory University), Thomas Boston (Atlanta University), Al Colon (Howard University), St., Clair Drake (Stanford University), Howard Fuller (Marquettie University), Sterling Plurnpp (University of Illinois-Chicago), Eugene Redmond (Sacramento State), William    Sales (Seton Hall University), Rosalyn ,Terborg-Penn (Morgan State    College), and Carlene Young (San Jose State).

Introduction to Afro-American Studies has been developed as part of a general trend in Afro-American Studies., Within this trend there is diversity but more important is the united front around a committed scholarship: Robert Allen (Mills College), Amiri Baraka (SUNY Stony Brook), Linda Burnham (Black Scholar), Rod Bush (Institute for the Study of Labor and Economic Crisis), Johnetta Cole (University of Massachusetts), James Cone (Union Theological Seminary), Angela Davis (San Francisco State University), Howard Dodson (Schomburg Library), Vincent Franklin (Yale University), Vincent Harding (University of Denver) Donald Harris (Stanford University), Lloyd Hogan

(Hampshire College), Manning Marble (Colgate University), C. J. Munford (Guelph University), Robert Rhodes (Ohio University), Cedric Robinson (University of California at Santa Barbara), Geneva Smitherman (Wayne State University), and Cornell West (Yale University).