Association for the Study of African American Life and History

With approximately 5,000 professional historians, lay historians, and history advocates, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History is the largest organization in the United States dedicated to researching, writing, and disseminating (popularizing) historical information on people of African ancestry in the United States and around the world. Long before the concept became widely accepted, the association practiced a form of multiculturalism as its leaders argued that knowledge of African American history among all Americans would elevate self-esteem among Blacks and promote racial understanding among Whites.

On September 9, 1915, Alexander L. Jackson, the executive secretary of the Negro YMCA in Chicago; George Cleveland Hall, the personal physician of Booker T. Washington and a surgeon at Provident Hospital in Chicago; James Stamps, a ...