Two hundred and twenty-seven African American patients with Type 1 diabetes and 471 African American control subjects were tested for association at the HLA class II genes, HLA-DRB1, HLA-DQA1, HLA-DQB1 and 5147 single nucleotide polymorphisms across the major histocompatibility complex region using logistic regression models. The gene discussed is HLA-DRB1; the disease is type 1 diabetes mellitus.