Prior type 2 diabetes (T2D) genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have generated a list of well-replicated susceptibility loci in populations of European and Asian ancestry. To validate the trans-ethnic contribution of the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) involved in these GWASs, we performed a family-based association analysis of 32 selected GWAS SNPs in a cohort of 1496 African-American (AA) subjects from the Genetics of NIDDM (GENNID) study. Functional roles of these SNPs were evaluated by screening cis-eQTLs in transformed lymphoblast cell lines available for a sub-group of Genetics of NIDDM (GENNID) families from Arkansas. Only three of the 32 GWAS-derived SNPs showed nominally significant association with T2D in our AA cohort. Among the replicated SNPs rs864745 in JAZF1 and rs10490072 in BCL11A gene (P=0.006 and 0.03, respectively, after adjustment for body mass index) were within the 1-lod drop support interval of T2D linkage peaks reported in these families. Genotyping of 19 tag SNPs in these two loci revealed no further common SNPs or haplotypes that may be a stronger predictor of T2D susceptibility than the index SNPs. Six T2D GWAS SNPs (rs6698181, rs9472138, rs730497, rs10811661, rs11037909 and rs1153188) were associated with nearby transcript expression in transformed lymphoblast cell lines of GENNID AA subjects. Thus, our study indicates a nominal role for JAZF1 and BCL11A variants in T2D susceptibility in AAs and suggested little overlap in known susceptibility to T2D between European- and African-derived populations when considering GWAS SNPs alone.