The Museum has over 175 works by African-American artists in the collection, including painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed-media, photography, printmaking, ceramics, and textiles. Works range in date from the mid 1800s to the present, and are always on view in the American, Modern and Contemporary, and Folk Art galleries. 

The Bohorfoush Gallery, located off of the main lobby, is also dedicated to African-American art, and features rotating exhibitions from the Museum’s permanent collection, loans from private and public collections, and traveling exhibitions.  Noteworthy artists in the permanent collection include Robert Scott Duncanson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, James Van der Zee, Emma Amos, Lorna Simpson, Mel Edwards, Radcliffe Bailey, Kerry James Marshall, Richard Hunt, Bob Thompson, Benny Andrews, Gordon Parks, Glen Ligon, Willie Cole, and many others.  Noted Alabama artists include Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Charlie Lucas, Yvonne Wells, and Bill Traylor among others.