AASC contains over 7,500 articles as well as primary source documents, images, maps, charts and tables, and timelines covering the African American experience. The core content includes:
- Africana - presents an account of the African and African American experience in five volumes.
- Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 - documents the full range of the African American experience from the arrival of the black explorer, Esteban, who arrived with the Spanish in 1527, to the death of Frederick Douglass.
- Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the present - offers the most extensive treatment of African American history into the twenty-first century.
- Black Women in America, Second Edition - explores the achievements and contributions of black women in America throughout history.
- African American National Biography - presents African American history through the lives of its people, ultimately offering over 6,000 biographies.
- Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature.