In keeping with the land grant mission of the university of Georgia, the Department of History contributes to the Service and Outreach functions of the University. The Department, its faculty, and its students have participated in such work with respect to the history and legacy of slavery in and around the university in a number of ways: by sponsoring departmental initiatives, by forming student groups engaged in service in and around Athens, by collaborating with units of the Office of the Vice President for Service and Outreach on university initiatives, and by incorporating service and experiential learning opportunities in the classroom.

For the past several years, the Department of History has sponsored a number of Black History Month activities. In 2018, this included reading groups devoted to Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (February 1, 2018) and Heather Thompson's Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (February 9, 2018). On February 23, 2019, the faculty and students planned and participated in a walking tour of the building names of North Campus, offering community members and students insight into the landscape of names through which we move every day. In addition, the department has sponsored guest lecturers who have insight into the relationship between universities and slavery, including Craig Steven Wilder’s 2017 visit to campus in which he delivered the annual Gregory Distinguished Lecture on "Slavery and Universities in Revolutionary America."

History Department students have been active in and around Athens. In 2017, History majors and other students organized the Friends of Gospel Pilgrim, planning and carrying out monthly service days caring for the local historic African American cemetery over the 2018-2019 academic year.

History Department faculty and students have begun partnering with Experience UGA, an initiative of the Office of Service and Outreach to bring every Athens-Clarke County public school student to campus each year. As part of this wider university initiative, History Department students and faculty in 2018 and 2019 designed and led tours of the African American history of North Campus for local 8th grade students. The tours introduced local teenagers to the history of slavery at the university, the desegregation of UGA, the history of campus protest and the symbolic Arch, and the overlaid histories of Baldwin Hall and the Old Athens Cemetery.