African American intellectual history is replete with profound reflections and criticisms of a philosophical nature on the historical experiences of African descendant peoples in the Americas. The philosophic thought of African American men and women on prevailing American conceptions of freedom, liberation, race, equality, democracy, and personhood, have been among the most philosophically fecund in all of the Americas. Even where this work was not carried out by men and women with formal training in philosophy, its relevance and usefulness, to say nothing of its critical veracity, and argumentative force, in addressing deep philosophical issues is undeniable. Moreover, this body of intellectual work forms the canonical foundation of a great deal of contemporary philosophical activity. African American philosophy as an established, yet growing field in professional philosophy has argued forcefully for both the genuinely philosophical character of much of this earlier work, at the same time that it has sought to demonstrate its relevance to contemporary philosophical concerns. Members of the African American intellectual tradition such as Sojourner Truth, Alexander Crummell, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Anna Julia Cooper have produced work that is increasingly the focus of a diverse field of feminists, pragmatists, ethicists, social, and political philosophers.

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The African American Philosophy and the Diaspora Book Series publishes high quality work that considers philosophically the experiences of African descendant peoples in the United States and the Americas. The series will feature single-authored manuscripts, as well as, anthologies of original essays. Works that advance the philosophical understanding of problems and situations facing black people in the US/Americas both historically and in the present day are welcome. The series will cover an array of themes, issues, problems, concepts and arguments germane to the historical conditions, present day realities, and future prospects facing African descendant peoples in the Americas. Such topics might include but are not limited to philosophical issues of race, ethnicity, identity, liberation, subjugation, political struggles, and social and economic conditions as they pertain to the black experience. Some texts may also consider the African descendant population in the United States as it relates to other parts of the African diaspora. A central and defining feature of this series will be works that offer philosophical analyses of canonical figures in African American thought, as well as, canonical texts. The aim of the series is to amass a collection of texts that give primacy to the treatment of African American intellectuals as producers of original philosophical thought, theories, concepts, and arguments that stand in their own right as proper objects of philosophical investigation, not as a foil to the works of mainstream European and American philosophers.