The Amistad Research Center's art collection consists of outstanding examples of African and African American art. The collection is particularly strong in the area of African textiles with dozens of splendid examples of raffia pile cloth (kasai velvet) as well as beaded objects made during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by artisans from the Kuba kingdom in Zaire. The majority of the additional African objects are from West Africa, and include masks, carved figures and posts, musical instruments, calabash art, utilitarian and sacred containers and vessels, basketry, ceremonial clothing, cast metal objects and figures and iron currency.
The African American collection at the Amistad Research Center consists of two categories: the Aaron Douglas Collection of late 19th and early 20th centuries art and contemporary African American Art.

Named for Aaron Douglas, the outstanding pioneer of early 20th century African American art and longtime chairman of the art department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, the Aaron Douglas Collection was donated to the Amistad Research Center by the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries. The late 19th century works in the Douglas collection are by Edward M. Bannister and Henry 0. Tanner. Amistad also owns works by the mid-l9th century African American Louisiana painter, printmaker-and photographer Jules Lion. He is credited with introducing the daguerreotype to New Orleans. He was New Orleans' first professional photographer and co-founder of the city's earliest art school.

The early 20th century works in the Aaron Douglas Collection represent most of the important post-Harlem Renaissance artists who were active during the first half of the 20th century: Aaron Douglas, Hale Woodruff, William H. Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, William E. Scott, Jacob Lawrence, Palmer Hayden, Claude Clark, Ellis Wilson, William Artis, Richmond Barthe, Elizabeth Catlett and Selma Burke. The most celebrated pieces in the Aaron Douglas Collection are Funeral Procession of l940 by Ellis Wilson that appeared for years in the living room set on The Cosby Show and the Toussaint L'Ouverture series by Jacob Lawrence. Completed in 1938 when Lawrence was only 21 years old, the 41 paintings depict the role of Toussaint L'Ouverture in the liberation of Haiti from France and are the earliest of Lawrence's famed series. Many scholars consider the Toussaint series to be his most significant.

Contemporary works by African American artists in the Amistad Research Center's collection include examples by Jeffrey Cook, David Driskell, Earl Hooks, Keith Morrison, Gregory Ridley, John Scott, Frank Wyley and many Southern artists. Vivian Ellis, a self-taught memory painter born in New Orleans, but has lived and practiced in Germany for over 30 years is represented in the collection, and has also donated her papers to Amistad.

The Amistad Research Center is also the repository for the papers of the artists Richmond Barthe, Elizabeth Catlett, William E. Pajaud, John T. Scott, Hale Woodruff and Vernett Honeywood.