Historically, the English curriculum offered by public secondary schools has given little attention to literature written by black Americans. In order to investigate and describe the status of Afro-American literature in the North Carolina public secondary schools, a questionnaire was sent to 358 English department chairs and 328 teachers of Afro-American literature, and interviews were conducted with a stratified, random sample of 22 English teachers. Data showed that Afro-American literature courses existed in 62% of the schools sampled. Three organizational arrangements were most commonly used: separate courses for the subject matter, incorporation of Afro-American literature with American literature, and inclusion of Afro-American literature with other ethnic literature, social studies, or black studies courses. More than 50% of the teachers sampled considered themselves poorly prepared to teach this content area; 70% reported that no in-service training had been provided for English teachers in their schools for the past five years; and 50% indicated that they had never had a course in Afro-American literature. It was concluded that courses in Afro-American literature existed in the schools primarily as a result of the interest of particular educators. (Author/KS)