1. The art of perception: how art communicates : The primary source
How to look at art: a case study : Iconography ; Formalism ; Biography ; Semiotics ; Psychoanalysis ; Contextual analyses
Part I: Eighteenth and nineteenth century art : 2. Art and design in the colonial era : Africanisms in the New World : Architecture ; Sculptural art forms
Fine arts in the age of slavery
3. Federal-period architecture and design : Architecture : Charles Paquet
Woodwork : Early masters
Federal-era craftsmen
Civil War-era craftsmen : Thomas Day ; Henry Gudgell
Ceramics : "Dave the potter" (David Drake) ; Thomas Commeraw
Metalwork : Peter Bentzon
Textile and clothing design : Early quilt making and makers ; Harriet Powers ; Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley
4. 19th-century Neoclassicism : Sculpture : Edmonia Lewis ; Florville Foy ; Daniel and Eugene Warburg
Two-dimensional art : Joshua Johnson ; William Simpson ; Julien Hudson ; African-American women artists and friendship albums ; Jules Lion ; Patrick Henry Reason
5. Romanticism to Impressionism in the nineteenth century : The landscape tradition : Robert S. Duncanson ; Grafton Tyler Brown ; Edward Mitchell Bannister
Portraiture and figurative art : David Bustill Bowser ; Nelson A. Primus ; Henry O. Tanner ; Annie E. Anderson Walker ; Photography ; James Presley Ball, Sr.. ; Augustus Washington ; Glenalvin, Wallace, and William Goodridge
Architecture of the gilded age : Calvin Thomas Stowe Brent ; John Anderson and Arthur Edward Lankford ; George Washington Foster, Jr. ; Julian Francis Abele
Black vernacular architecture
Part II: Early to mid-20th century art : Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance : The making of Harlem : The great migration ; "Harlem: mecca of the new Negro"
Supporting the renaissance: art patrons : Private and institutional patronage ; Black patronage
Sculpture : Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller ; May Howard Jackson ; Sargent Claude Johnson ; Nancy Elizabeth Prophet ; Richmond Barthé
Painting : William Edouard Scott ; Palmer Hayden ; Archibald Motley, Jr. ; Malvin Gray Johnson ; Aaron Douglas ; William H. Johnson ; Lois Mailou Jones
Photography and printmaking : James Van Der Zee ; James Latimer Allen ; James Lesesne Wells ; King Daniel Ganaway ; Other African-American photographers
7. Social realism : The WPA Federal Art Project
Social realist murals : Charles Alston and the Harlem Hospital murals ; Hale Woodruff and the Golden State murals
Avant-garde architecture
Augusta Savage, the Harlem Art Centers, and the Harlem Artists Guild : Selma Hortense Burke
The Chicago Arts and Crafts Guild, Artists Union, and South Side Community Art Center : Margaret Burroughs ; Charles White
Printmaking : Dox Thrash and the Philadelphia Fine Prints Workshop ; The printmaking legacy of Riva Helfond ; Printmakers at Karamu House in Cleveland
8. Mid-twentieth century transitions and surrealism : Figuration versus abstraction: a national debate
The legacy of social realism : Elizabeth Catlett ; Ellis Wilson ; Romare Bearden ; Jacob Lawrence ; Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence ; John Biggers
Surrealism : Hughie Lee-Smith ; Eldzier Cortor ; Rose Ransier Piper ; Minnie Evans
Art Brut and self-taught artists : Bill (William) Traylor ; William Edmondson ; Clementine Hunter ; Horace Pippin, Jr.
Photography : Gordon Parks ; Roy DeCarava ; Charles (Chuck) Stewart
9. Abstract expressionism : Action painting, gestural abstraction : Beauford Delaney ; Norman Lewis ; Alma Thomas
Color field painting : Sam Gilliam ; Richard Mayhew
Hard-edge painting : Al Loving ; William T. Williams
Figurative expressionism : Robert (Bob) L. Thompson ; Betty Blayton
Sculpture : Harold Cousins ; Richard Hunt ; Melvin (Mel) Eugene Edwards, Jr. ; Barbara Chase-Riboud
Part III: The latter 20th century : 10. Pop and Agitprop: the Black arts movement : Spiral and the civil rights movement : Reginald Gammon ; Raymond Saunders
The Black arts movement : Museum protests ; Benny Andrews ; Cliff Joseph
The WEUSI aesthetic : Ademola Olugebefola ; Ben F. Jones ; James Phillips
OBAC and the Wall of Respect
AfriCOBRA and the Black aesthetic : Jeffrey Donaldson ; Wadsworth and Jae Jarrell ; Barbara Jones-Hogu ; Nelson Stevens
The OBAC and AfriCOBRA legacy: Black Power murals : William Walker ; Calvin B. Jones and Mitchell Caton
Agiprop art : Dana C. Chandler, Jr. ; Joe Overstreet ; David Hammons
11. Black feminist art: a crisis of race and sex : A crisis of race and sex
WSABAL and the WWA
Black feminist artists : Kay Brown ; Faith Ringgold ; Dindga F. McCannon ; Betye Saar ; Emma Amos ; Nellie Mae Rowe
Black feminist murals : Vanita Green and Justine Preshé DeVan ; Sharon Haggins Dunn
12. Postmodernism : Post-minimalism : Fred Eversley ; Lorenzo Pace ; Martin Puryear
Conceptual art : Howardena Pindell ; Pat Ward Williams ; Glenn Ligon
Intermedia art : Houston Conwill ; Terry Adkins ; Lorraine O'Grady ; Adrian Piper ; Renée Green ; Fred Wilson ; Martha Jackson-Jarvis
Assemblage art : Noah Purifoy ; John Outterbridge ; Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson ; Alison Saar ; Willie Cole
Postmodern photography : Carrie Mae Weems ; Dawoud Bey ; Lyle Ashton Harris ; Lorna Simpson
Part IV: Contemporary trends : 13. Neo-expressionism, the new abstraction, and architecture : Neo-expressionism : Robert Colescott ; Joyce J. Scott ; Michael Ray Charles ; Kara Walker ; Kerry James Marshall ; Jean-Michel Basquiat ; Danny Simmons, Jr.
The new abstraction : Jack Whitten ; Thornton Dial, Sr. ; Mildred Thompson ; Gaye Ellington
Architecture : J. Max Bond, Jr. ; Norma Merrick Sklarek ; Mario Gooden and Ray Huff ; Phil Freelon ; The McKissack legacy ; Other notable architects
14. Post-Black art and the new millennium : Portraiture and identity politics : Deborah Willis ; Jeff Sonhouse ; Mickalene Thomas ; Kehinde Wiley
Afrofuturism : Renée Cox ; Ellen Gallagher ; Laylah Ali ; Sanford Biggers ; Xaviera Simmons ; Trenton Doyle Hancock
New millennium performance art : Nick Cave ; Camille Norment ; Intervention art : William Pope.L ; Theaster Gates
New media abstraction : Chakaia Booker ; Xenobia Bailey ; Mark Bradford ; Jennie C. Jones ; Shinique Smith.