Encyclopedia
An
African American is a member of an ethnic group in the
United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to
sub-saharan Africa. Many African Americans have a degree of
European,
Native American,
Asian and/or
Latin American mestizo ancestry as well. The term refers specifically to black African ancestry; not, for example, to European colonial or
Caucasoid North African ancestry, such as
Maghreb Berber or European
South African ancestry. Definitively,
African American means an
American of black African descent. The majority of African Americans are the descendants of enslaved Africans transported via the Middle Passage from West and Central Africa to
North America from 1609 through 1807 during the trans-
Atlantic slave trade. Others have arrived in the United States through more recent immigration from the
Caribbean,
South America,
Central America and
Africa. Black immigrants from African and European nations as well as predominantly black, non-African and non-Latino/Hispanic Caribbean countries such as
Haiti, the
Bahamas, and
Jamaica, though often referred to by their nations of origin and not culturally defined as African American socially, are demographically classified with black and/or African American by the
U.S. Census; however, in general, the cultural assumption is that if a person is black, native
English-speaking and living in the
United States, he or she is African American.
Nomenclature
The term "African American" has been in common usage in the United States since the late 1980s. Large numbers of African Americans began to adopt the term self-referentially in preference to "Negro", which was popular before the mid 1960s and "black" since the late 1960s. Black nationalist
Malcolm X had favored the descriptive term "African American" as more historically and culturally defining over either prior term, and used the term at an OAAU meeting in the mid-1960s, saying, "Twenty-two million African Americans - that's what we are - Africans who are in America."
Asian Americans had also standardized on combining the name of a continent and nationality in preference to "oriental" after the 1970s. Prior to the adoption of the term African American, several other terms had been used at various points in American history. These included Negro, colored,
Afro-American, and black. To some extent, the history of these names can be found in the names of various organizations founded over the course of American history. Civil rights organization the "
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ", founded 1909, is significantly older than the philanthropic organization the "
United Negro College Fund", founded 1944, because the term "colored" had come to be seen as condescending by the time of the UNCF's founding. Nonetheless, both Negro and colored remained common until the late 1960s, especially in the southern United States.
Some African Americans began to abandon the terms "Black" and "Afro-American", which had become popular during the Black Power movement of the 1960s, adopting the autonym "African American" instead, some out of desire for an unabbreviated expression of their African heritage that could not be mistaken or derided as an allusion to the afro hairstyle, and some rejecting the perceived militancy of the term "Afro American" . Due to the legacy of the Black Power/black is beautiful movement, by 1980, the term "black" was accepted as a term of pride by a majority of Americans of African descent, but also became the referential term applied by
white Americans in general. In addition to black, the term African American slowly became increasingly popular, and during the 1980s, a popular movement to designate "African American" as the preferred term for American blacks began. The most influential proponent of this term during the 1980s was
Jesse Jackson. Jackson and like-minded persons argued that "African American" was more in keeping with the United States immigrant tradition of "hyphenated Americans", which link people with their ancestors' geographic points of origin, and allowed people to assert cultural pride in addition to maintaining their American national identity. Using language reminiscent of Malcolm X, Jackson successfully effected the change, first in the media, and then in the popular culture.
African American, black and, to a lesser extent, Afro-American are used interchangeably today, but their precise meanings and connotations are in dispute. The term African American is sometimes problematic because of its imprecise
cultural and geographic meaning. The term as originally applied refers to only those descended from a small number of colonial
indentured servants and the estimated 500,000 Africans taken to British North America as slaves . In slightly broader usage, the term can include
West Indian and Afro-Latino immigrants whose African ancestors also survived the Middle Passage or recent African immigrants/children of immigrants with American citizenship, but these groups tend to use the ethnic terms Latino or
Hispanic, or identify themselves by their countries of origin . The term does not include predominantly
European, Arab or
Republic of India descended immigrants from the African continent, and they are not generally considered to be indigenous Africans by the black African majority. Non-blacks from Africa who become permanent residents or citizens of the United States are not generally referred to nor do they generally refer to themselves as African American.
Demographics
In 1790, when the first
census was taken, African Americans numbered about 760,000—about 19% of the population. In 1860, at the start of the
American Civil War, the African American
population increased to 4.4 million, but the percentage rate dropped to 14% of the overall population of the country. The vast majority were slaves, with only 488,000 counted as "freemen". By 1900, the black population had doubled and reached 8.8 million. In 1910, about 90% of African Americans lived in the
South, but large numbers began migrating north looking for better job opportunities and living conditions, and to escape
Jim Crow and racial violence. The Great Migration, as it was called, spanned the 1890s to the 1970s. From 1916 through the 1960s, more than 6 million black people moved
north. But in the 1970s and 1980s, that trend reversed, with more African Americans moving south to the
Sunbelt than leaving it. By 1990, the African American population reached about 30 million and represented 12% of the U.S. population, roughly the same proportion as in 1900. In current demographics, according to 2005 U.S.
Census figures, some 39.9 million African Americans live in the
United States, comprising 13.8 percent of the total population. At the time of the 2000 Census, 54.8 percent of African Americans lived in the
South. In that year, 17.6 percent of African Americans lived in the
Northeast and 18.7 percent in the
Midwest, while only 8.9 percent lived in the western states. Almost 88 percent of African Americans lived in metropolitan areas in 2000. With over 2 million black residents,
New York City had the largest black
urban population in the
United States in 2000. Among cities of 100,000 or more,
Gary,
Indiana, had the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. city in 2000, with 85 percent, followed closely by
Detroit,
Michigan, with 83 percent.
Atlanta, Georgia, has a substantial African American population of about 65 percent.
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, with 43 percent, and
Washington, D.C., with 60 percent, are also large African American population centers.
History
Blacks in America are historically composed of many diverse ethnic groups. Over 40 identifiable ethnic groups from at least 25 different
kingdoms were sold to British North America during the
Atlantic slave trade. These ethnic groups were usually sold to
European traders by powerful coastal or interior states in exchange for European goods such as
textiles and
firearms. Africans were very rarely kidnapped by Europeans because they could not penetrate the interior. The danger of fatal disease was ever-present and the coastal areas were dominated by powerful warrior kingdoms.
Africans sold and traded into bondage and shipped to the United States came from eight distinct slave-trading regions in
Africa, including Senegambia ,
Sierra Leone ,
Windward Coast , Gold Coast ,
Bight of Benin , Bight of Biafra ,
Central Africa and Southeast Africa .
Enslaved Africans brought their own religious beliefs, languages, and cultural practices with them when they were forced on ships from Africa to the
New World, however, slave traders and owners mounted a systematic and brutal campaign to de-Africanize them, eventually nearly completely stripping them of their original names,
languages and religious beliefs. As additional means of subjugation, slave owners often intentionally mixed people who spoke many different African languages to discourage communication in any language other than English on their plantations and it became illegal for slaves to be taught to read or write. Over time, Africans in America formed a new and common identity focused on their mutual condition in America as opposed to cultural and historic ties to
Africa.
By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved Africans in the
Southern United States, and another 500,000 Africans lived free across the country.
Slavery was a controversial issue in American society and politics. The growth of
abolitionism, which opposed the institution of slavery, culminated in the 1860 election of
Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, and was one reason for the secession of the
Confederate States of America, which lead to the
American Civil War . After the Civil War, the United States offered certain civil rights to African Americans. The
Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 declared all slaves in the Confederacy free under U.S. law. It included exceptions for those held in all territories that had not seceded, however, and thus did not immediately free a single
slave, since U.S. law held no sway over the Confederacy at the time. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, freed all slaves, including those in states that had not seceded. During
Reconstruction, African Americans in the South obtained the right to vote and to hold public office, as well as a number of other
civil rights they previously had been denied. However, when Reconstruction ended in 1877, southern, white landowners reinstituted the "
Jim Crow" regime of disenfranchisement and
racial segregation, and with it a wave of terrorism and repression, including
lynchings and other vigilante violence.
During the Progressive Era, black members of the
middle class attempted improving the conditions of their ethnicity. This movement was strongest in the
Southern United States and it often revolved around black southern
universities such as
Tuskegee University or
Atlanta University, academic journals, and the
Episcopal Church. Like white progressives, black progressives helped the working class through charitable means while supporting political changes that increased the role of the state in creating socioeconomic equity, as opposed to equality. Many black progressives] were elitist and often condescending towards those they were intent on helping, akin to white progressives' attitudes and actions towards European immigrants. Black progressives were successful in their charitable efforts, but often were not concerned with issues like
racial segregation. Instead, they supported a
social darwinist mentality with the hope that blacks through hardwork and education could accelerate their social evolution. The plight of most black people did not improve during this time due to racist policies supported by many whites and white vigilante action.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century in the United States, racially discriminatory laws and racial violence aimed at African Americans began to mushroom. Elected, appointed, or hired government authorities began to require or permit discrimination, specifically in the states of
Texas,
Louisiana,
Mississippi,
Alabama,
Georgia,
Florida,
South Carolina,
North Carolina,
Virginia,
Arkansas,
Tennessee,
Oklahoma, and
Kansas. There were four required or permitted acts of discrimination against African Americans. They included racial segregation – upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 - which was legally mandated by southern states and nationwide at the local level of government, voter suppression or disfranchisement in the southern states, denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, and private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans unhindered or encouraged by government authorities. Although racial discrimination was present nationwide, the combination of law, public and private acts of discrimination, marginal economic opportunity, and violence directed toward African Americans in the southern states became known as
Jim Crow. The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South that sparked the Great Migration of the early 20th century, combined with a growing African American intellectual and cultural elite in the
Northern United States, led to a movement to fight violence and discrimination against African Americans that, like
abolitionism before it, crossed racial lines. One of the most prominent of these groups, the
NAACP, galvanized by outspoken journalist and activist
Ida B. Wells Barnett, led an anti-lynching crusade. In the 1950s, the organization mounted a series of calculated legal challenges to overturn
Jim Crow segregation, culminating in the landmark
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision.
The Supreme Court's decision in
Brown v. Board was one of defining moments of the modern-day
American Civil Rights Movement. It was part of a long-term strategy to strike down Jim Crow segregation in public education, the hospitality industry, public transportation, employment and housing, granting equal access to African Americans and ensuring their right to
vote.
The
Civil Rights Movement aimed at abolishing public and private acts of
racial discrimination against African Americans between 1954 to 1968, particularly in the southern United States. By 1966, the emergence of the Black Power Movement, which lasted from 1966 to 1975, expanded upon the aims of the
Civil Rights Movement to include racial dignity, economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from white authority. Several scholars have begun to refer to the
Civil Rights Movement as the Second Reconstruction. The
Civil Rights Movement and subsequent Black Power Movement was the culmination of generations of oppression and contained several key events in American history, including the murder of
Emmett Till,
Rosa Parks and the
Montgomery bus boycott, the desegregation of
Little Rock, Arkansas, multiple sit-ins and freedom rides, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and many other notable events. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the conditions which brought it into being are credited with putting pressure on President John F. Kennedy and then Lyndon B. Johnson that culminated in the passage the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and
labor unions.
The "
Mississippi Freedom Summer" of 1964 brought thousands of idealistic youth, black and white, to the state to run "freedom schools", to teach basic literacy, history and civics. Other volunteers were involved in voter registration drives. The season was marked by harassment, intimidation and violence directed at Civil Rights workers and their host families. The disappearance of three youths,
James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman and
Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi, captured the attention of the nation. Six weeks later, searchers found the savagely beaten body of Chaney, a black man, in a muddy dam alongside the remains of his two white companions, who had been shot to death. Outrage at the escalating injustices of the "Mississippi Blood Summer", as it by then had come to be known, and at the brutality of the murders brought about the passage of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act struck down barriers to black enfranchisement and was the capstone to more than a decade of major civil rights legislation.
By this time, African Americans who questioned the effectiveness of nonviolent protest had gained a greater voice. More militant black leaders, such as
Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam and
Eldridge Cleaver of the
Black Panther Party for Self Defense, called for blacks to defend themselves, using violence, if necessary. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the Black Power movement urged African Americans to look to
Africa for inspiration and emphasized black solidarity, rather than
integration. The movement reached its peak in the 1960s under leaders such as
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Whitney Young, and Roy Wilkins, Sr. At the same time, Nation of Islam spokesman
Malcolm X and, later,
Stokely Carmichael, the
Black Panther Party, and the
Republic of New Africa called for African Americans to embrace
black nationalism and black self-empowerment, propounding ideas of African unity, solidarity and pan-Africanism. By the end of the 1960's, however, several civil rights activists, leaders and pan-africanists were assassinated, including
Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and
Fred Hampton. Nevertheless, politically and economically, African Americans have made substantial strides in the post-civil rights era.
Contemporary issues
Many African Americans have improved their social economic standing significantly since the
Civil Rights Movement and recent decades have witnessed the expansion of a robust, African American middle class across the
United States. Unprecedented access to higher education and employment has been gained by African Americans in the post-civil rights era, however, due in part to the legacy of
slavery,
racism and discrimination, African Americans as a group remain at a pronounced
economic,
educational and social disadvantage in many areas relative to whites. Persistent social,
economic and political issues for many African Americans include inadequate health care access and delivery; institutional racism and discrimination in housing,
education 
