African Americans have been in the Ozark hills since before statehood, but in small numbers. Both white and Cherokee settlers in the pre-statehood years had slaves. At the beginning of the Civil War, one out of four people in Arkansas were African American slaves, with most of them living on plantations in the eastern Arkansas Delta.

In Washington County, about 3% of the households had slaves. Most slaveholders had one to three slaves, but there were a few wealthy farmers and businessmen in and around the communities of Fayetteville, Cane Hill, and Elkins who counted between 20 and 40 slaves. From 1829 until the Civil War, about 10% of Washington County's population were slaves. In Madison County during that time, slaves accounted for 15 to 20% of the population.

Following the Civil War, some slaves remained as free servants with the white families they had lived with. Others, sometimes taking the last name of the families who had owned them, settled into communities near Huntsville, Kingston, Cane Hill, Elkins, Bentonville, Harrison, Eureka Springs, and in southeast Fayetteville. Lack of education and lack of jobs led most Ozark African Americans into subsistence farming. Many of the children grew up and left Arkansas for better opportunities. Today, most of the old African American communities no longer exist.

The University of Arkansas became the first university in the South after Reconstruction to to admit African American students with the admission of Silas Hunt to the school of law in 1948. The Fayetteville School Board was the first school district in the former Confederate states to vote to desegregate their schools in 1954.

Northwest Arkansas' African American population saw a steady decline through the 1900s. In the 2000 census, Washington County showed 2.5% of residents identifying themselves as African American. Every other county in Northwest Arkansas shows less than one percentage point.

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