| Year | President | Affiliation |
| 1957-1958 | Melville J Herskovits | Northwestern University |
| 1958 | Gwendolen M Carter (elected ex-officio) | Smith College |
| 1959 | William O Brown | Boston University |
| 1960 | Cornelius W deKiewiet | Not Available |
| 1961 | William O Jones | Stanford University |
| 1962 | Vernon McKay | Johns Hopkins University |
| 1963 | E Franklin Frazier (died before taking office | Not Available |
| 1963 | James S Coleman (elected to replace Frazier) | Not Available |
| 1963 | Hans Wolff | Michigan State University |
| 1964 | Paul J Bohannan | Not Available |
| 1965 | Joseph H. Greenberg | Not Available |
| 1966 | Rupert Emerson | Harvard University |
| 1967 | William A Hance | Columbia University |
| 1968 | James S Duffy | Brandeis University |
| 1969 | Benjamin E Thomas | University of California |
| 1970 | L Gray Cowan | Columbia University |
| 1971 | Philip D Curtin | University of Wisconsin |
| 1972 | Carl G Rosberg | University of California-Berkeley |
| 1973 | Immanuel Wallerstein | McGill University |
| 1974 | Absolom Vilakazi | The American University |
| 1975 | John Marcum | University of California-Santa Cruz |
| 1976 | Victor Uchendu | University of Illinois-Urbana |
| 1977 | Edris Makward | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 1978 | J Gus Liebenow | Indiana University |
| 1979 | Ali Mazrui | University of Michigan |
| 1980 | Peter Gutkind | McGill University |
| 1981 | Norman Bennett | Boston University |
| 1982 | Richard Sklar | University of California-Los Angeles |
| 1983 | M Crawford Young | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 1984 | Laura Bohannan | University of Illinois-Chicago Circle |
| 1985 | Robert J Cummings | Howard University |
| 1986 | Gerald J Bender | University of Southern California |
| 1987 | Aidan Southall | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 1988 | Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja | Howard University |
| 1989 | Simon Ottenberg | University of Washington |
| 1990 | Ann Seidman | Clark University |
| 1991 | Martin A Klein | University of Toronto |
| 1992 | Edmond J Keller | University of California-Los Angeles |
| 1993 | David Robinson | Michigan State University |
| 1994 | Edward A Alpers | University of California-Los Angeles |
| 1995 | Goran Hyden | University of Florida |
| 1996 | Iris Berger | State University of New York-Albany |
| 1997 | Gwendolyn Mikell | Georgetown University |
| 1998 | Sandra Greene | Cornell University |
| 1999 | David Wiley | Michigan State University |
| 2000 | Lansine Kaba | University of Illinois |
| 2001 | Catharine Newbury | University of North Carolina |
| 2002 | Allen Isaacman | University of Minnesota |
| 2003 | Beverly Grier | Clark University |
| 2004 | Sandra T. Barnes | University of Pennsylvania |
| 2005 | Bruce J. Berman | Queen's University |
| 2006 | Joseph C. Miller | University of Virginia |
| 2007 | Pearl T. Robinson | Tufts University |
| 2008 | Aliko Songolo, President | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 2009 | Paul Tiyambe Zeleza | University of Illinois-Chicago |
| 2010 | Charles Ambler, Vice President, President-elect | University of Texas at El Paso |
