Community colleges serve as the primary educational pathway for Black American males. Despite years of high enrollment by Black American males in community college, their persistence rates in community college continue to decline. The continued persistence decline has concerned community college leaders. Community colleges have attempted to implement initiatives to increase Black male persistence rates and address the outcome disparity, but the decline continues. The purpose of this qualitative interpretive phenomenological study was to understand the impact of engagement activities on Black American males' persistence in community colleges. With the conceptual framework being guided by the main principle tenets of Critical Race Theory and Involvement Theory, the overarching research question and subquestions that guided this research included: 1) How do Black American males describe the role of student engagement in their desire to persist in community college? a) How do Black American males in community colleges describe their involvement experience in student engagement? b) What challenges or obstacles, if any, do Black American males describe they have faced while enrolled in a community college? Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews with seven participants. Three themes emerged from the semi-structured one-on-one interview data analysis and are as follows: 1) Leadership and Engagement Activities, 2) Safe Spaces, and 3) Encouragement and Resources. Two themes were also developed from the focus groups data analysis and are as follows: 1) Race and Education, and 2) Representation. The findings of this research provide community colleges with information about Black American male students' lived experiences that may address the persistence disparity and aid in the incorporation of student engagement in the community college experience. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]