Emory collects African American-published books, pamphlets, periodicals, sheet music, broadsides, and printed ephemera in all fields. It also holds the papers of publishers, editors, journalists, and distributors of print culture, as well as material related to publishing history, including adverts, book notices, and salesman's samples.

Building on a long-standing collecting focus on American communism and the political Left, Emory holds important papers of African American social and political activists. These include the papers of Harlem Renaissance figure and campaigner for civil rights and international human rights, Louise Thompson Patterson; papers of her close friends and West Coast political activists Matt and Evelyn Graves Crawford; and important materials of their lifelong friend, Langston Hughes. Papers of social and political activists of the later 20th century include those of Vincent G. Harding, a founder of the Institute of the Black World; Doris A. Derby, co-founder of the Free Southern Theatre; Elaine Brown, the only woman to head the Black Panther Party; and SNCC activists Joan C. Browning and Constance W. Curry.

Expatriate African American arts and letters are well documented by papers of the Paris nightclub owner Bricktop (Ada Smith); correspondence of Josephine Baker; research collections gathered by the French scholar Michel Fabre (with especially strong holdings related to Chester Himes, Richard Wright, Ted Joans, and Wilson Harris); and the library of Martiniquan writer and book critic René Maran.

Twentieth century African American arts and letters may be researched through the Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives, which is especially strong in art and theatre history. Papers of Flournoy Miller and of his daughter (jazz harpist Olivette Miller) include original scripts for Shuffle Along, the play that Langston Hughes describes as having ushered in the Harlem Renaissance. The Delilah Jackson archive is rich in African American theatre, dance, and music history, and includes more than 3,000 photographs of African American performers and entertainers, along with hundreds of interviews conducted by Ms. Jackson. The Benny Andrews papers detail his life and work as both artist and advocate of arts education. African American music is documented in the papers of composer and choral conductor William Levi Dawson; Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker; blues singer Victoria Spivey; and music educators Geneva Handy Southall and Manet Harrison Fowler.

African American religious and fraternal history are documented in a number of collections. Emory holds papers of African American missionaries Josephus R. Coan, who founded the R. R. Wright, Jr., School of Religion in the Transvaal in the 1930s, and Althea Brown Edmiston, who served in Congo and who created the first dictionary of the Bakuba language. Papers of the Father Divine Peace Mission Movement include substantial printed material, along with sermon notes, correspondence, writings, photographs and memorabilia. The Mamie Wade Avant papers document a Savannah medium from the mid-20th century and include pamphlets, fortune telling cards, handwritten formulas and cures for a variety of physical and emotional ailments. The papers of Viola P. Andrews include writings of this Atlanta religious educator as well as extensive documentation on her family (including sons Raymond and Benny Andrews). Minute books of the Philadelphia chapter of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America, for the years 1850-1887, provide a fascinating window on this important benevolent and fraternal organization.

Please see the following subject guides for information concerning additional collections: African American History and Culture, and Civil Rights