African Americans (also referred to as Black
Americans or Afro-Americans) are an ethnic
group of Americans with total or partial ancestry
from any of the black racial groups of Africa.
The term typically refers to descendants of
enslaved black people who are from the United
States. As a compound adjective, the term
is usually hyphenated as African-American.Black
and African Americans constitute the third
largest racial and ethnic group in the United
States (after White Americans and Hispanic
and Latino Americans). Most African Americans
are descendants of enslaved peoples within
the boundaries of the present United States.
On average, African Americans are of West/Central
African and European descent, and some also
have Native American ancestry. According to
US Census Bureau data, African immigrants
generally do not self-identify as African
American. The overwhelming majority of African
immigrants identify instead with their own
respective ethnicities (~95%). Immigrants
from some Caribbean, Central American and
South American nations and their descendants
may or may not also self-identify with the
term.African-American history starts in the
16th century, with peoples from West Africa
forcibly taken as slaves to Spanish America,
and in the 17th century with West African
slaves taken to English colonies in North
America. After the founding of the United
States, black people continued to be enslaved,
and the last four million black slaves were
only liberated after the Civil War in 1865.
Due to notions of white supremacy, they were
treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization
Act of 1790 limited U.S. citizenship to whites
only, and only white men of property could
vote. These circumstances were changed by
Reconstruction, development of the black community,
participation in the great military conflicts
of the United States, the elimination of racial
segregation, and the civil rights movement
which sought political and social freedom.
In 2008, Barack Obama became the first African
American to be elected President of the United
States.
== History ==
=== Colonial era ===
The first African slaves arrived via Santo
Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony
(most likely located in the Winyah Bay area
of present-day South Carolina), founded by
Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón
in 1526.The marriage between Luisa de Abrego,
a free black domestic servant from Seville
and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador
in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida),
is the first known and recorded Christian
marriage anywhere in what is now the continental
United States.The ill-fated colony was almost
immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership,
during which the slaves revolted and fled
the colony to seek refuge among local Native
Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists
died shortly afterwards of an epidemic and
the colony was abandoned. The settlers and
the slaves who had not escaped returned to
Haiti, whence they had come.The first recorded
Africans in British North America (including
most of the future United States) were "20
and odd negroes" who came to Jamestown, Virginia
via Cape Comfort in August 1619 as indentured
servants. As English settlers died from harsh
conditions, more and more Africans were brought
to work as laborers.
An indentured servant (who could be white
or black) would work for several years (usually
four to seven) without wages. The status of
indentured servants in early Virginia and
Maryland was similar to slavery. Servants
could be bought, sold, or leased and they
could be physically beaten for disobedience
or running away. Unlike slaves, they were
freed after their term of service expired
or was bought out, their children did not
inherit their status, and on their release
from contract they received "a year's provision
of corn, double apparel, tools necessary",
and a small cash payment called "freedom dues".Africans
could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase
their freedom. They raised families, married
other Africans and sometimes intermarried
with Native Americans or English settlers.
By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families
owned farms around Jamestown and some became
wealthy by colonial standards and purchased
indentured servants of their own. In 1640,
the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest
documentation of lifetime slavery when they
sentenced John Punch, a Negro, to lifetime
servitude under his master Hugh Gwyn for running
away.In the Spanish Florida some Spanish married
or had unions with Pensacola, Creek or African
women, both slave and free, and their descendants
created a mixed-race population of mestizos
and mulattos. The Spanish encouraged slaves
from the southern British colonies to come
to Florida as a refuge, promising freedom
in exchange for conversion to Catholicism.
King Charles II of Spain issued a royal proclamation
freeing all slaves who fled to Spanish Florida
and accepted conversion and baptism. Most
went to the area around St. Augustine, but
escaped slaves also reached Pensacola. St.
Augustine had mustered an all-black militia
unit defending Spain as early as 1683.One
of the Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson,
would later own one of the first black "slaves",
John Casor, resulting from the court ruling
of a civil case.The popular conception of
a race-based slave system did not fully develop
until the 18th century. The Dutch West India
Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the
importation of eleven black slaves into New
Amsterdam (present-day New York City). All
the colony's slaves, however, were freed upon
its surrender to the British.
Massachusetts was the first British colony
to legally recognize slavery in 1641. In 1662,
Virginia passed a law that children of enslaved
women (who were of African descent and thus
foreigners) took the status of the mother,
rather than that of the father, as under English
common law. This principle was called partus
sequitur ventrum.By an act of 1699, the colony
ordered all free blacks deported, virtually
defining as slaves all people of African descent
who remained in the colony. In 1670, the colonial
assembly passed a law prohibiting free and
baptized negroes (and Indians) from purchasing
Christians (in this act meaning English or
European whites) but allowing them to buy
people "of their owne nation".In the Spanish
Louisiana although there was no movement toward
abolition of the African slave trade, Spanish
rule introduced a new law called coartación,
which allowed slaves to buy their freedom,
and that of others. Although some did not
have the money to buy their freedom that government
measures on slavery allowed a high number
of free blacks. That brought problems to the
Spaniards with the French Creoles who also
populated Spanish Louisiana, French creoles
cited that measure as one of the system's
worst elements. In spite of that, there was
a greater number of slaves as the years passed,
as also the entire Spanish Louisiana population
increased.
The earliest African-American congregations
and churches were organized before 1800 in
both northern and southern cities following
the Great Awakening. By 1775, Africans made
up 20% of the population in the American colonies,
which made them the second largest ethnic
group after the English.
=== From the American Revolution to the Civil
War ===
During the 1770s, Africans, both enslaved
and free, helped rebellious English colonists
secure American independence by defeating
the British in the American Revolution. Africans
and Englishmen fought side by side and were
fully integrated. Blacks played a role in
both sides in the American Revolution. Activists
in the Patriot cause included James Armistead,
Prince Whipple and Oliver Cromwell.In the
Spanish Louisiana, Governor Bernardo de Gálvez
organized Spanish free blackmen into two militia
companies to defend New Orleans during the
American Revolution. They fought in the 1779
battle in which Spain took Baton Rouge from
the British. Gálvez also commanded them in
campaigns against the British outposts in
Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, he
recruited slaves for the militia by pledging
to free anyone who was seriously wounded and
promised to secure a low price for coartación
(buy their freedom and that of others) for
those who received lesser wounds. During the
1790s, Governor Francisco Luis Héctor, baron
of Carondelet reinforced local fortifications
and recruit even more free blackmen for the
militia. Carondelet doubled the number of
free blackmen who served, creating two more
militia companies—one made up of black members
and the other of pardo (mixed race). Serving
in the militia brought free blackmen one step
closer to equality with whites, allowing them,
for example, the right to carry arms and boosting
their earning power. However actually these
privileges distanced free blackmen from enslaved
blacks and encouraged them to identify with
whites.Slavery had been tacitly enshrined
in the U.S. Constitution through provisions
such as Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, commonly
known as the 3/5 compromise. Slavery, which
by then meant almost exclusively African Americans,
was the most important political issue in
the antebellum United States, leading to one
crisis after another. Among these were the
Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850,
the Fugitive Slave Act, and the Dred Scott
decision.
Prior to the Civil War, eight serving presidents
owned slaves, a practice protected by the
U.S. Constitution. By 1860, there were 3.5
to 4.4 million enslaved blacks in the U.S.
due to the Atlantic slave trade, and another
488,000–500,000 African Americans lived
free (with legislated limits) across the country.
With legislated limits imposed upon them in
addition to "unconquerable prejudice" from
whites according to Henry Clay, some blacks
who weren't enslaved left the U.S. for Liberia
in Africa. Liberia began as a settlement of
the American Colonization Society (ACS) in
1821, with the abolitionist members of the
ACS believing blacks would face better chances
for freedom and equality in Africa.The slaves
not only constituted a large investment, they
produced America's most valuable product and
export: cotton. They not only helped build
the U.S. Capitol, they built the White House
and other District of Columbia buildings.
(Washington was a slave trading center.) Similar
building projects existed in slaveholding
states.
In 1863, during the American Civil War, President
Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
The proclamation declared that all slaves
in Confederate-held territory were free. Advancing
Union troops enforced the proclamation with
Texas being the last state to be emancipated,
in 1865.
Slavery in Union-held Confederate territory
continued, at least on paper, until the passage
of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Prior
to the Civil War, only white men of property
could vote, and the Naturalization Act of
1790 limited U.S. citizenship to whites only.
The 14th Amendment (1868) gave African-Americans
citizenship, and the 15th Amendment (1870)
gave African-American males the right to vote
(only males could vote in the U.S. at the
time).
=== Reconstruction Era and Jim Crow ===
African Americans quickly set up congregations
for themselves, as well as schools and community/civic
associations, to have space away from white
control or oversight. While the post-war Reconstruction
era was initially a time of progress for African
Americans, that period ended in 1876. By the
late 1890s, Southern states enacted Jim Crow
laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement.
Segregation, which began with slavery, continued
with Jim Crow laws, with signs used to show
blacks where they could legally walk, talk,
drink, rest, or eat. For those places that
were racially mixed, non whites had to wait
until all white customers were dealt with.
Most African Americans obeyed the Jim Crow
laws, in order to avoid racially motivated
violence. To maintain self-esteem and dignity,
African Americans such as Anthony Overton
and Mary McLeod Bethune continued to build
their own schools, churches, banks, social
clubs, and other businesses.In the last decade
of the 19th century, racially discriminatory
laws and racial violence aimed at African
Americans began to mushroom in the United
States, a period often referred to as the
"nadir of American race relations". These
discriminatory acts 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 disenfranchisement 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.
=== Great migration and civil rights movement
===
The desperate conditions of African Americans
in the South sparked the Great Migration of
the early 20th century which led to a growing
African-American community in the Northern
United States. The rapid influx of blacks
disturbed the racial balance within Northern
cities, exacerbating hostility between both
black and white Northerners. Urban riots—whites
attacking blacks—became a northern problem.
The Red Summer of 1919 was marked by hundreds
of deaths and higher casualties across the
U.S. as a result of race riots that occurred
in more than three dozen cities, such as the
Chicago race riot of 1919 and the Omaha race
riot of 1919. Overall, blacks in Northern
cities experienced systemic discrimination
in a plethora of aspects of life. Within employment,
economic opportunities for blacks were routed
to the lowest-status and restrictive in potential
mobility. Within the housing market, stronger
discriminatory measures were used in correlation
to the influx, resulting in a mix of "targeted
violence, restrictive covenants, redlining
and racial steering". While many whites defended
their space with violence, intimidation, or
legal tactics toward African Americans, many
other whites migrated to more racially homogeneous
suburban or exurban regions, a process known
as white flight.
By the 1950s, the civil rights movement was
gaining momentum. A 1955 lynching that sparked
public outrage about injustice was that of
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago.
Spending the summer with relatives in Money,
Mississippi, Till was killed for allegedly
having wolf-whistled at a white woman. Till
had been badly beaten, one of his eyes was
gouged out, and he was shot in the head. The
visceral response to his mother's decision
to have an open-casket funeral mobilized the
black community throughout the U.S. Vann R.
Newkirk| wrote "the trial of his killers became
a pageant illuminating the tyranny of white
supremacy". The state of Mississippi tried
two defendants, but they were speedily acquitted
by an all-white jury. One hundred days after
Emmett Till's murder, Rosa Parks refused to
give up her seat on the bus in Alabama—indeed,
Parks told Emmett's mother Mamie Till that
"the photograph of Emmett's disfigured face
in the casket was set in her mind when she
refused to give up her seat on the Montgomery
bus."
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
and the conditions which brought it into being
are credited with putting pressure on Presidents
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson
put his support behind passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination
in public accommodations, employment, and
labor unions, and the Voting Rights Act of
1965, which expanded federal authority over
states to ensure black political participation
through protection of voter registration and
elections. 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 economic and political
self-sufficiency, and freedom from white authority.During
the postwar period, many African Americans
continued to be economically disadvantaged
relative to other Americans. Average black
income stood at 54 percent of that of white
workers in 1947, and 55 percent in 1962. In
1959, median family income for whites was
$5,600, compared with $2,900 for nonwhite
families. In 1965, 43 percent of all black
families fell into the poverty bracket, earning
under $3,000 a year. The Sixties saw improvements
in the social and economic conditions of many
black Americans.From 1965 to 1969, black family
income rose from 54 to 60 percent of white
family income. In 1968, 23 percent of black
families earned under $3,000 a year, compared
with 41 percent in 1960. In 1965, 19 percent
of black Americans had incomes equal to the
national median, a proportion that rose to
27 percent by 1967. In 1960, the median level
of education for blacks had been 10.8 years,
and by the late Sixties the figure rose to
12.2 years, half a year behind the median
for whites.
=== Post–civil rights era ===
Politically and economically, African Americans
have made substantial strides during the post–civil
rights era. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became
the first African American elected governor
in U.S. history. Clarence Thomas became the
second African-American Supreme Court Justice.
In 1992, Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became
the first African-American woman elected to
the U.S. Senate. There were 8,936 black officeholders
in the United States in 2000, showing a net
increase of 7,467 since 1970. In 2001, there
were 484 black mayors.In 2005, the number
of Africans immigrating to the United States,
in a single year, surpassed the peak number
who were involuntarily brought to the United
States during the Atlantic Slave Trade. On
November 4, 2008, Democratic Senator Barack
Obama defeated Republican Senator John McCain
to become the first African American to be
elected president. At least 95 percent of
African-American voters voted for Obama. He
also received overwhelming support from young
and educated whites, a majority of Asians,
Hispanics, and Native Americans picking up
a number of new states in the Democratic electoral
column. Obama lost the overall white vote,
although he won a larger proportion of white
votes than any previous nonincumbent Democratic
presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter.
Obama was reelected for a second and final
term, by a similar margin on November 6, 2012.
== Demographics ==
In 1790, when the first U.S. Census was taken,
Africans (including slaves and free people)
numbered about 760,000—about 19.3% of the
population. In 1860, at the start of the Civil
War, the African-American population had 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. Large numbers began migrating north
looking for better job opportunities and living
conditions, and to escape Jim Crow laws 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 Sun
Belt than leaving it.The following table of
the African-American population in the United
States over time shows that the African-American
population, as a percentage of the total population,
declined until 1930 and has been rising since
then.
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.At the time of the 2000 Census,
54.8% of African Americans lived in the South.
In that year, 17.6% of African Americans lived
in the Northeast and 18.7% in the Midwest,
while only 8.9% lived in the western states.
The west does have a sizable black population
in certain areas, however. California, the
nation's most populous state, has the fifth
largest African-American population, only
behind New York, Texas, Georgia, and Florida.
According to the 2000 Census, approximately
2.05% of African Americans identified as Hispanic
or Latino in origin, many of whom may be of
Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban,
Haitian, or other Latin American descent.
The only self-reported ancestral groups larger
than African Americans are the Irish and Germans.According
to the 2010 US Census, nearly 3% of people
who self-identified as black had recent ancestors
who immigrated from another country. Self-reported
non-Hispanic black immigrants from the Caribbean,
mostly from Jamaica and Haiti, represented
0.9% of the US population, at 2.6 million.
Self-reported black immigrants from Sub-Saharan
Africa also represented 0.9%, at about 2.8
million. Additionally, self-identified Black
Hispanics represented 0.4% of the United States
population, at about 1.2 million people, largely
found within the Puerto Rican and Dominican
communities. Self-reported black immigrants
hailing from other countries in the Americas,
such as Brazil and Canada, as well as several
European countries, represented less than
0.1% of the population. Mixed-Race Hispanic
and non-Hispanic Americans who identified
as being part black, represented 0.9% of the
population. Of the 12.6% of United States
residents who identified as black, around
10.3% were "native black American" or ethnic
African Americans, who are direct descendants
of West/Central Africans brought to the U.S.
as slaves. These individuals make up well
over 80% of all blacks in the country. When
including people of mixed-race origin, about
13.5% of the US population self-identified
as black or "mixed with black". However, according
to the U.S. census bureau, evidence from the
2000 Census indicates that many African and
Caribbean immigrant ethnic groups do not identify
as "Black, African Am., or Negro". Instead,
they wrote in their own respective ethnic
groups in the "Some Other Race" write-in entry.
As a result, the census bureau devised a new,
separate "African American" ethnic group category
in 2010 for ethnic African Americans.
=== U.S. cities ===
After 100 years of African-Americans leaving
the south in large numbers seeking better
opportunities in the west and north, a movement
known as the Great Migration, there is now
a reverse trend, called the New Great Migration.
As with the earlier Great Migration, the New
Great Migration is primarily directed toward
cities and large urban areas, such as Atlanta,
Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh, Tampa,
San Antonio, Memphis, Nashville, Jacksonville,
and so forth. A growing percentage of African-Americans
from the west and north are migrating to the
southern region of the U.S. for economic and
cultural reasons. New York City, Chicago,
and Los Angeles have the highest decline in
African Americans, while Atlanta, Dallas,
and Houston have the highest increase respectively.Among
cities of 100,000 or more, Detroit, Michigan
had the highest percentage of black residents
of any U.S. city in 2010, with 82%. Other
large cities with African-American majorities
include Jackson, Mississippi (79.4%), Miami
Gardens, Florida (76.3%), Baltimore, Maryland
(63%), Birmingham, Alabama (62.5%), Memphis,
Tennessee (61%), New Orleans, Louisiana (60%),
Montgomery, Alabama (56.6%), Flint, Michigan
(56.6%), Savannah, Georgia (55.0%), Augusta,
Georgia (54.7%), Atlanta, Georgia (54%, see
African Americans in Atlanta), Cleveland,
Ohio (53.3%), Newark, New Jersey (52.35%),
Washington, D.C. (50.7%), Richmond, Virginia
(50.6%), Mobile, Alabama (50.6%), Baton Rouge,
Louisiana (50.4%), and Shreveport, Louisiana
(50.4%).
The nation's most affluent community with
an African-American majority resides in View
Park–Windsor Hills, California with an annual
median income of $159,618. Other largely affluent
predominantly African-American communities
include Prince George's County in Maryland
(namely Mitchellville, Woodmore, and Upper
Marlboro), Dekalb County in Georgia, Charles
City County in Virginia, Baldwin Hills in
California, Hillcrest and Uniondale in New
York, and Cedar Hill, DeSoto, and Missouri
City in Texas. Queens County, New York is
the only county with a population of 65,000
or more where African Americans have a higher
median household income than White Americans.Seatack,
Virginia is currently the oldest African-American
community in the United States. It survives
today with a vibrant and active civic community.
=== Education ===
By 2012, African Americans had advanced greatly
in education attainment. They still lagged
overall compared to white or Asian Americans
but surpassed other ethnic minorities, with
19 percent earning bachelor's degrees and
6 percent earning advanced degrees. Between
1995 and 2009, freshmen college enrollment
for African Americans increased by 73 percent
and only 15 percent for whites. Black women
are enrolled in college more than any other
race and gender group, leading all with 9.7%
enrolled according to the 2011 U.S. Census
Bureau. Predominantly black schools for kindergarten
through twelfth grade students were common
throughout the U.S. before the 1970s. By 1972,
however, desegregation efforts meant that
only 25% of Black students were in schools
with more than 90% non-white students. However,
since then, a trend towards re-segregation
affected communities across the country: by
2011, 2.9 million African-American students
were in such overwhelmingly minority schools,
including 53% of Black students in school
districts that were formerly under desegregation
orders.Historically black colleges and universities
(HBCUs), which were originally set up when
segregated colleges did not admit African
Americans, continue to thrive and educate
students of all races today. The majority
of HBCUs were established in the southeastern
United States, Alabama has the most HBCUs
of any state.As late as 1947, about one third
of African Americans over 65 were considered
to lack the literacy to read and write their
own names. By 1969, illiteracy as it had been
traditionally defined, had been largely eradicated
among younger African Americans.US Census
surveys showed that by 1998, 89 percent of
African Americans aged 25 to 29 had completed
a high-school education, less than whites
or Asians, but more than Hispanics. On many
college entrance, standardized tests and grades,
African Americans have historically lagged
behind whites, but some studies suggest that
the achievement gap has been closing. Many
policy makers have proposed that this gap
can and will be eliminated through policies
such as affirmative action, desegregation,
and multiculturalism.The average high school
graduation rate of blacks in the United States
has steadily increased to 71% in 2013. Separating
this statistic into component parts shows
it varies greatly depending upon the state
and the school district examined. 38% of black
males graduated in the state of New York but
in Maine 97% graduated and exceeded the white
male graduation rate by 11 percentage points.
In much of the southeastern United States
and some parts of the southwestern United
States the graduation rate of white males
was in fact below 70% such as in Florida where
a 62% of white males graduated high school.
Examining specific school districts paints
an even more complex picture. In the Detroit
school district the graduation rate of black
males was 20% but 7% for white males. In the
New York City school district 28% of black
males graduate high school compared to 57%
of white males. In Newark County 76% of black
males graduated compared to 67% for white
males. Further academic improvement has occurred
in 2015. Roughly 23% of all blacks have bachelor's
degrees. In 1988, 21% of whites had obtained
a bachelor's degree versus 11% of blacks.
In 2015, 23% of blacks had obtained a bachelor's
degree versus 36% of whites. Foreign born
blacks, 9% of the black population, made even
greater strides. They exceed native born blacks
by 10 percentage points.
=== Economic status ===
Economically, African Americans have benefited
from the advances made during the civil rights
era, particularly among the educated, but
not without the lingering effects of historical
marginalisation when considered as a whole.
The racial disparity in poverty rates has
narrowed. The black middle class has grown
substantially. In 2010, 45% of African Americans
owned their homes, compared to 67% of all
Americans. The poverty rate among African
Americans has decreased from 26.5% in 1998
to 24.7% in 2004, compared to 12.7% for all
Americans.
African Americans have a combined buying power
of over $892 billion currently and likely
over $1.1 trillion by 2012. In 2002, African
American-owned businesses accounted for 1.2
million of the US's 23 million businesses.
As of 2011 African American-owned businesses
account for approximately 2 million US businesses.
Black-owned businesses experienced the largest
growth in number of businesses among minorities
from 2002 to 2011.In 2004, African-American
men had the third-highest earnings of American
minority groups after Asian Americans and
non-Hispanic whites.Twenty-five percent of
blacks had white-collar occupations (management,
professional, and related fields) in 2000,
compared with 33.6% of Americans overall.
In 2001, over half of African-American households
of married couples earned $50,000 or more.
Although in the same year African Americans
were over-represented among the nation's poor,
this was directly related to the disproportionate
percentage of African-American families headed
by single women; such families are collectively
poorer, regardless of ethnicity.In 2006, the
median earnings of African-American men was
more than black and non-black American women
overall, and in all educational levels. At
the same time, among American men, income
disparities were significant; the median income
of African-American men was approximately
76 cents for every dollar of their European
American counterparts, although the gap narrowed
somewhat with a rise in educational level.Overall,
the median earnings of African-American men
were 72 cents for every dollar earned of their
Asian American counterparts, and $1.17 for
every dollar earned by Hispanic men. On the
other hand, by 2006, among American women
with post-secondary education, African-American
women have made significant advances; the
median income of African-American women was
more than those of their Asian-, European-
and Hispanic American counterparts with at
least some college education.The US public
sector is the single most important source
of employment for African Americans. During
2008–2010, 21.2% of all Black workers were
public employees, compared with 16.3% of non-Black
workers. Both before and after the onset of
the Great Recession, African Americans were
30% more likely than other workers to be employed
in the public sector.The public sector is
also a critical source of decent-paying jobs
for Black Americans. For both men and women,
the median wage earned by Black employees
is significantly higher in the public sector
than in other industries.In 1999, the median
income of African-American families was $33,255
compared to $53,356 of European Americans.
In times of economic hardship for the nation,
African Americans suffer disproportionately
from job loss and underemployment, with the
black underclass being hardest hit. The phrase
"last hired and first fired" is reflected
in the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment
figures. Nationwide, the October 2008 unemployment
rate for African Americans was 11.1%, while
the nationwide rate was 6.5%.The income gap
between black and white families is also significant.
In 2005, employed blacks earned 65% of the
wages of whites, down from 82% in 1975. The
New York Times reported in 2006 that in Queens,
New York, the median income among African-American
families exceeded that of white families,
which the newspaper attributed to the growth
in the number of two-parent black families.
It noted that Queens was the only county with
more than 65,000 residents where that was
true.In 2011, it was reported that 72% of
black babies were born to unwed mothers. The
poverty rate among single-parent black families
was 39.5% in 2005, according to Williams,
while it was 9.9% among married-couple black
families. Among white families, the respective
rates were 26.4% and 6% in poverty.
Collectively, African Americans are more involved
in the American political process than other
minority groups in the United States, indicated
by the highest level of voter registration
and participation in elections among these
groups in 2004. African Americans collectively
attain higher levels of education than immigrants
to the United States. African Americans also
have the highest level of Congressional representation
of any minority group in the U.S.
=== Politics ===
A large majority of African Americans support
the Democratic Party. In the 2004 Presidential
Election, Democrat John Kerry received 88%
of the African-American vote compared to 11%
for Republican George W. Bush. Although there
is an African-American lobby in foreign policy,
it has not had the impact that African-American
organizations have had in domestic policy.Many
African Americans were excluded from electoral
politics in the decades following the end
of Reconstruction. For those that could participate,
until the New Deal, African Americans were
supporters of the Republican Party because
it was Republican President Abraham Lincoln
who helped in granting freedom to American
slaves; at the time, the Republicans and Democrats
represented the sectional interests of the
North and South, respectively, rather than
any specific ideology, and both conservative
and liberal were represented equally in both
parties.
The African-American trend of voting for Democrats
can be traced back to the 1930s during the
Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt's
New Deal program provided economic relief
to African Americans. Roosevelt's New Deal
coalition turned the Democratic Party into
an organization of the working class and their
liberal allies, regardless of region. The
African-American vote became even more solidly
Democratic when Democratic presidents John
F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson pushed for
civil rights legislation during the 1960s.
In 1960, nearly a third of African Americans
voted for Republican Richard Nixon.
=== Health ===
The life expectancy for Black men in 2008
was 70.8 years. Life expectancy for Black
women was 77.5 years in 2008. In 1900, when
information on Black life expectancy started
being collated, a Black man could expect to
live to 32.5 years and a Black woman 33.5
years. In 1900, White men lived an average
of 46.3 years and White women lived an average
of 48.3 years. African-American life expectancy
at birth is persistently five to seven years
lower than European Americans.Black people
have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and
hypertension than the US average. For adult
Black men, the rate of obesity was 31.6% in
2010. For adult Black women, the rate of obesity
was 41.2% in 2010. African Americans have
higher rates of mortality than does any other
racial or ethnic group for 8 of the top 10
causes of death. In 2013, among men, black
men had the highest rate of getting cancer,
followed by white, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific
Islander (A/PI), and American Indian/Alaska
Native (AI/AN) men. Among women, white women
had the highest rate of getting cancer, followed
by black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander,
and American Indian/Alaska Native women.
Violence has an impact upon African-American
life expectancy. A report from the U.S. Department
of Justice states "In 2005, homicide victimization
rates for blacks were 6 times higher than
the rates for whites". The report also found
that "94% of black victims were killed by
blacks."AIDS is one of the top three causes
of death for African-American men aged 25–54
and for African-American women aged 35–44
years. In the United States, African Americans
make up about 48% of the total HIV-positive
population and make up more than half of new
HIV cases. The main route of transmission
for women is through unprotected heterosexual
sex. African-American women are 19 times more
likely to contract HIV than other women.Washington,
D.C. has the nation's highest rate of HIV/AIDS
infection, at 3%. This rate is comparable
to what is seen in West Africa, and is considered
a severe epidemic. Dr. Ray Martins, Chief
Medical Officer at the Whitman-Walker Clinic,
the largest provider of HIV care in Washington
D.C., estimated that the actual underlying
percent with HIV/AIDS in the city is "closer
to five percent".Although in the last decade
black youth have had lower rates of cannabis
(marijuana) consumption than whites of the
same age, they have higher arrest rates than
whites.
=== Sexuality ===
According to a Gallup survey, 4.6% of Black
or African-Americans self-identified as LGBT
in 2016, while the total portion of American
adults in all ethnic groups identifying as
LGBT was 4.1% in 2016. The disproportionately
high incidence of HIV/AIDS among African-Americans
has been attributed to homophobic attitudes.
== Genetics ==
=== Genome-wide studies ===
Recent surveys of African Americans using
a genetic testing service have found varied
ancestries which show different tendencies
by region and sex of ancestors. These studies
found that on average, African Americans have
73.2-82.1% West African, 16.7%-24% European,
and 0.8–1.2% Native American genetic ancestry,
with large variation between individuals.
Genetics websites themselves have reported
similar ranges, with some finding 1 or 2 percent
Native American ancestry and Ancestry.com
reporting an outlying percentage of European
ancestry among African Americans, 29%.According
to a genome-wide study by Bryc et al. (2009),
the overall ancestry of African Americans
was formed through historic admixture between
West/Central Africans (more frequently females)
and Europeans (more frequently males). Consequently,
the 365 African Americans in their sample
have a genome-wide average of 78.1% West African
ancestry and 18.5% European ancestry, with
large variation among individuals (ranging
from 99% to 1% West African ancestry). The
West African ancestral component in African
Americans is most similar to that in present-day
speakers from the non-Bantu branches of the
Niger-Congo (Niger-Kordofanian) family.Correspondingly,
Montinaro et al. (2014) observed that around
50% of the overall ancestry of African Americans
traces back to the Niger-Congo-speaking Yoruba
of southwestern Nigeria and southern Benin,
reflecting the centrality of this West African
region in the Atlantic Slave Trade. The next
most frequent ancestral component found among
African Americans was derived from Great Britain,
in keeping with historical records. It constitutes
a little over 10% of their overall ancestry,
and is most similar to the Northwest European
ancestral component also carried by Barbadians.
Zakharaia et al. (2009) found a similar proportion
of Yoruba associated ancestry in their African-American
samples, with a minority also drawn from Mandenka
and Bantu populations. Additionally, the researchers
observed an average European ancestry of 21.9%,
again with significant variation between individuals.
Bryc et al. (2009) note that populations from
other parts of the continent may also constitute
adequate proxies for the ancestors of some
African-American individuals; namely, ancestral
populations from Guinea Bissau, Senegal and
Sierra Leone in West Africa and Angola in
Southern Africa.Altogether, genetic studies
suggest that African Americans are a multiracial
people. According to DNA analysis led in 2006
by Penn State geneticist Mark D. Shriver,
around 58 percent of African Americans have
at least 12.5% European ancestry (equivalent
to one European great-grandparent and his/her
forebears), 19.6 percent of African Americans
have at least 25% European ancestry (equivalent
to one European grandparent and his/her forebears),
and 1 percent of African Americans have at
least 50% European ancestry (equivalent to
one European parent and his/her forebears).
According to Shriver, around 5 percent of
African Americans also have at least 12.5%
Native American ancestry (equivalent to one
Native American great-grandparent and his/her
forebears).
=== Y-DNA ===
According to a Y-DNA study by Sims et al.
(2007), the majority (~60%) of African Americans
belong to various subclades of the E3a (E1b1a)
paternal haplogroup. This is the most common
genetic paternal lineage found today among
West/Central African males, and is also a
signature of the historical Bantu migrations.
The next most frequent Y-DNA haplogroup observed
among African Americans is the R1b clade,
which around 15% of African Americans carry.
This lineage is most common today among Northwestern
European males. The remaining African Americans
mainly belong to the paternal haplogroup I
(~7%), which is also frequent in Northwestern
Europe.
=== mtDNA ===
According to an mtDNA study by Salas et al.
(2005), the maternal lineages of African Americans
are most similar to haplogroups that are today
especially common in West Africa (>55%), followed
closely by West-Central Africa and Southwestern
Africa (<41%). The characteristic West African
haplogroups L1b, L2b,c,d, and L3b,d and West-Central
African haplogroups L1c and L3e in particular
occur at high frequencies among African Americans.
As with the paternal DNA of African Americans,
contributions from other parts of the continent
to their maternal gene pool are insignificant.
== Social status ==
African Americans have improved their social
and 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 in addition to representation
in the highest levels of American government
has been gained by African Americans in the
post–civil rights era.
=== Economic issues ===
One of the most serious and long-standing
issues within African-American communities
is poverty. Poverty is associated with higher
rates of marital stress and dissolution, physical
and mental health problems, disability, cognitive
deficits, low educational attainment, and
crime. In 2004, almost 25% of African-American
families lived below the poverty level. In
2007, the average income for African Americans
was approximately $34,000, compared to $55,000
for whites. Forty percent of prison inmates
are African American. African Americans experience
a higher rate of unemployment than the general
population. African American males are more
likely to be killed by police. This is one
of the factors that led to the creation of
the Black Lives Matter movement.African Americans
have a long and diverse history of business
ownership. Although the first African-American
business is unknown, slaves captured from
West Africa are believed to have established
commercial enterprises as peddlers and skilled
craftspeople as far back as the 17th century.
Around 1900, Booker T. Washington became the
most famous proponent of African American
businesses. His critic and rival W.E.B. DuBois
also commended business as a vehicle for African
American advancement.
=== Social issues ===
After over 50 years, marriage rates for all
Americans began to decline while divorce rates
and out-of-wedlock births have climbed. These
changes have been greatest among African Americans.
After more than 70 years of racial parity
black marriage rates began to fall behind
whites. Single-parent households have become
common, and according to US census figures
released in January 2010, only 38 percent
of black children live with both their parents.In
2008, Democrats overwhelmingly voted 70% against
California Proposition 8, African Americans
voted 58% in favor of it while 42% voted against
Proposition 8. On May 9, 2012, Barack Obama,
the first black president, became the first
US president to support same-sex marriage.
After Obama's endorsement there is a rapid
growth in support for same-sex marriage among
African Americans. Now 59% of African Americans
support same-sex marriage, which is higher
than support among the national average (53%)
and white Americans (50%).Polls in North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Missouri, Maryland, Ohio, Florida,
and Nevada have also shown an increase in
support for same sex marriage among African
Americans. On November 6, 2012, Maryland,
Maine, and Washington all voted for approve
of same-sex marriage, along with Minnesota
rejecting a constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriage. Exit polls in Maryland
show about 50% of African Americans voted
for same-sex marriage, showing a vast evolution
among African Americans on the issue and was
crucial in helping pass same-sex marriage
in Maryland.Blacks hold far more conservative
opinions on abortion, extramarital sex, and
raising children out of wedlock than Democrats
as a whole. On financial issues, however,
African Americans are in line with Democrats,
generally supporting a more progressive tax
structure to provide more government spending
on social services.
=== Political legacy ===
African Americans have fought in every war
in the history of the United States.The gains
made by African Americans in the civil rights
movement and in the Black Power movement not
only obtained certain rights for African Americans,
but changed American society in far-reaching
and fundamentally important ways. Prior to
the 1950s, Black Americans in the South were
subject to de jure discrimination, or Jim
Crow laws. They were often the victims of
extreme cruelty and violence, sometimes resulting
in deaths: by the post World War II era, African
Americans became increasingly discontented
with their long-standing inequality. In the
words of Martin Luther King, Jr., African
Americans and their supporters challenged
the nation to "rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed that all men are created
equal ..."The civil rights movement marked
an enormous change in American social, political,
economic and civic life. It brought with it
boycotts, sit-ins, nonviolent demonstrations
and marches, court battles, bombings and other
violence; prompted worldwide media coverage
and intense public debate; forged enduring
civic, economic and religious alliances; and
disrupted and realigned the nation's two major
political parties.
Over time, it has changed in fundamental ways
the manner in which blacks and whites interact
with and relate to one another. The movement
resulted in the removal of codified, de jure
racial segregation and discrimination from
American life and law, and heavily influenced
other groups and movements in struggles for
civil rights and social equality within American
society, including the Free Speech Movement,
the disabled, the women's movement, Native
Americans, and migrant workers.
== News media and coverage ==
Some activists and academics contend that
news media coverage of African-American news
concerns or dilemmas is inadequate or the
news media present distorted images of African
Americans. To combat this, Robert L. Johnson
founded Black Entertainment Television, a
network that targets young African Americans
and urban audiences in the United States.
Most programming on the network consists of
rap and R&B music videos and urban-oriented
movies and series. The channel also shows
syndicated television series, original programs,
and some public affairs programs. On Sunday
mornings, BET broadcasts a lineup of network-produced
Christian programming; other, non-affiliated
Christian programs are also shown during the
early morning hours daily. BET is now a global
network that reaches 90 million households
in the United States, Caribbean, Canada, and
the United Kingdom.In addition to BET there
is BET Her, which is a spin-off cable television
channel of BET, created originally as BET
on Jazz to showcase jazz music-related programming,
especially that of black jazz musicians. Programming
has been expanded to include a block of urban
programs as well as some R&B, soul, and world
music.TV One is another African-American-oriented
network and a direct competitor to BET, targeting
African-American adults with a broad range
of programming. The network airs original
lifestyle and entertainment-oriented shows,
movies, fashion and music programming, as
well as classic series such as 227, Good Times,
Martin, Boston Public and It's Showtime at
the Apollo. The network primarily owned by
Radio One. Founded and controlled by Catherine
Hughes, it is one of the nation's largest
radio broadcasting companies and the largest
African-American-owned radio broadcasting
company in the United States.Other African-American
networks scheduled to launch in 2009 are the
Black Television News Channel founded by former
Congressman J. C. Watts and Better Black Television
founded by Percy Miller. In June 2009, NBC
News launched a new website named The Grio
in partnership with the production team that
created the black documentary film Meeting
David Wilson. It is the first African-American
video news site that focuses on underrepresented
stories in existing national news. The Grio
consists of a broad spectrum of original video
packages, news articles, and contributor blogs
on topics including breaking news, politics,
health, business, entertainment and Black
History.
== Culture ==
From their earliest presence in North America,
African Americans have significantly contributed
literature, art, agricultural skills, cuisine,
clothing styles, music, language, and social
and technological innovation to American culture.
The cultivation and use of many agricultural
products in the United States, such as yams,
peanuts, rice, okra, sorghum, grits, watermelon,
indigo dyes, and cotton, can be traced to
West African and African-American influences.
Notable examples include George Washington
Carver, who created 300 products from peanuts,
118 products from sweet potatoes, and 75 products
from pecans; and George Crum, a local legend
associates him with the creation of the potato
chip in 1853. Soul food is a variety of cuisine
popular among African Americans. It is closely
related to the cuisine of the Southern United
States. The descriptive terminology may have
originated in the mid-1960s, when soul was
a common definer used to describe African-American
culture (for example, soul music). African
Americans were the first peoples in the United
States to make fried chicken, along with Scottish
immigrants to the South. Although the Scottish
had been frying chicken before they emigrated,
they lacked the spices and flavor that African
Americans had used when preparing the meal.
The Scottish American settlers therefore adopted
the African-American method of seasoning chicken.
However, fried chicken was generally a rare
meal in the African-American community, and
was usually reserved for special events or
celebrations.
=== Language ===
African American English is a variety (dialect,
ethnolect, and sociolect) of American English,
commonly spoken by urban working-class and
largely bi-dialectal middle-class African
Americans.African-American English evolved
during the antebellum period through interaction
between speakers of 16th and 17th century
English of Great Britain and Ireland and various
West African languages. As a result, the variety
shares parts of its grammar and phonology
with the Southern American English dialect.
Where African American English differs from
Standard American English (SAE) is in certain
pronunciation characteristics, tense usage
and grammatical structures that were derived
from West African languages, particularly
those belonging to the Niger-Congo family.Virtually
all habitual speakers of African American
English can understand and communicate in
Standard American English. As with all linguistic
forms, AAVE's usage is influenced by various
factors, including geographical, educational
and socioeconomic background, as well as formality
of setting. Additionally, there are many literary
uses of this variety of English, particularly
in African-American literature.
==== Traditional names ====
African-American names are part of the cultural
traditions of African Americans. Prior to
the 1950s, and 1960s, most African-American
names closely resembled those used within
European American culture. Babies of that
era were generally given a few common names,
with children using nicknames to distinguish
the various people with the same name. With
the rise of 1960s civil rights movement, there
was a dramatic increase in names of various
origins.By the 1970s, and 1980s, it had become
common among African Americans to invent new
names for themselves, although many of these
invented names took elements from popular
existing names. Prefixes such as La/Le, Da/De,
Ra/Re and Ja/Je, and suffixes like -ique/iqua,
-isha and -aun/-awn are common, as are inventive
spellings for common names. The book Baby
Names Now: From Classic to Cool--The Very
Last Word on First Names places the origins
of "La" names in African-American culture
in New Orleans.Even with the rise of inventive
names, it is still common for African Americans
to use biblical, historical, or traditional
European names. Daniel, Christopher, Michael,
David, James, Joseph, and Matthew were thus
among the most frequent names for African-American
boys in 2013.The name LaKeisha is typically
considered American in origin, but has elements
of it that were drawn from both French and
West/Central African roots. Other names like
LaTanisha, JaMarcus, DeAndre, and Shaniqua
were created in the same way. Punctuation
marks are seen more often within African-American
names than other American names, such as the
names Mo'nique and D'Andre.
=== Religion ===
The 
majority of African Americans are Protestant,
many of whom follow the historically black
churches. The term Black church refers to
churches which minister to predominantly African-American
congregations. Black congregations were first
established by freed slaves at the end of
the 17th century, and later when slavery was
abolished more African Americans were allowed
to create a unique form of Christianity that
was culturally influenced by African spiritual
traditions.According to a 2007 survey, more
than half of the African-American population
are part of the historically black churches.
The largest Protestant denomination among
African Americans are the Baptists, distributed
mainly in four denominations, the largest
being the National Baptist Convention, USA
and the National Baptist Convention of America.
The second largest are the Methodists, the
largest denominations are the African Methodist
Episcopal Church and the African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church.Pentecostals are distributed
among several different religious bodies,
with the Church of God in Christ as the largest
among them by far. About 16% of African-American
Christians are members of white Protestant
communions, these denominations (which include
the United Church of Christ) mostly have a
2 to 3% African-American membership. There
are also large numbers of Catholics, constituting
5% of the African-American population. Of
the total number of Jehovah's Witnesses, 22%
are black.Some African Americans follow Islam.
Historically, between 15 and 30% of enslaved
Africans brought to the Americas were Muslims,
but most of these Africans were converted
to Christianity during the era of American
slavery. During the twentieth century, some
African Americans converted to Islam, mainly
through the influence of black nationalist
groups that preached with distinctive Islamic
practices; including the Moorish Science Temple
of America, and the largest organization,
the Nation of Islam, founded in the 1930s,
which attracted at least 20,000 people by
1963, prominent members included activist
Malcolm X and boxer Muhammad Ali.Malcolm X
is considered the first person to start the
movement among African Americans towards mainstream
Islam, after he left the Nation and made the
pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1975, Warith Deen
Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad took
control of the Nation after his father's death
and guided the majority of its members to
orthodox Islam.African-American Muslims constitute
20% of the total U.S. Muslim population, the
majority are Sunni or orthodox Muslims, some
of these identify under the community of W.
Deen Mohammed. The Nation of Islam led by
Louis Farrakhan has a membership ranging from
20,000–50,000 members.There are relatively
few African-American Jews; estimates of their
number range from 20,000 to 200,000. Most
of these Jews are part of mainstream groups
such as the Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox
branches of Judaism; although there are significant
numbers of people who are part of non-mainstream
Jewish groups, largely the Black Hebrew Israelites,
whose beliefs include the claim that African
Americans are descended from the Biblical
Israelites.Confirmed atheists are less than
one half of one-percent, similar to numbers
for Hispanics.
=== Music ===
African-American music is one of the most
pervasive African-American cultural influences
in the United States today and is among the
most dominant in mainstream popular music.
Hip hop, R&B, funk, rock and roll, soul, blues,
and other contemporary American musical forms
originated in black communities and evolved
from other black forms of music, including
blues, doo-wop, barbershop, ragtime, bluegrass,
jazz, and gospel music.
African-American-derived musical forms have
also influenced and been incorporated into
virtually every other popular music genre
in the world, including country and techno.
African-American genres are the most important
ethnic vernacular tradition in America, as
they have developed independent of African
traditions from which they arise more so than
any other immigrant groups, including Europeans;
make up the broadest and longest lasting range
of styles in America; and have, historically,
been more influential, interculturally, geographically,
and economically, than other American vernacular
traditions.African Americans have also had
an important role in American dance. Bill
T. Jones, a prominent modern choreographer
and dancer, has included historical African-American
themes in his work, particularly in the piece
"Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised
Land". Likewise, Alvin Ailey's artistic work,
including his "Revelations" based on his experience
growing up as an African American in the South
during the 1930s, has had a significant influence
on modern dance. Another form of dance, Stepping,
is an African-American tradition whose performance
and competition has been formalized through
the traditionally black fraternities and sororities
at universities.
=== Literature and academics ===
Many African-American authors have written
stories, poems, and essays influenced by their
experiences as African Americans. African-American
literature is a major genre in American literature.
Famous examples include Langston Hughes, James
Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston,
Ralph Ellison, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison,
and Maya Angelou.
African-American inventors have created many
widely used devices in the world and have
contributed to international innovation. Norbert
Rillieux created the technique for converting
sugar cane juice into white sugar crystals.
Moreover, Rillieux left Louisiana in 1854
and went to France, where he spent ten years
working with the Champollions deciphering
Egyptian hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone.
Most slave inventors were nameless, such as
the slave owned by the Confederate President
Jefferson Davis who designed the ship propeller
used by the Confederate navy.By 1913, over
1,000 inventions were patented by black Americans.
Among the most notable inventors were Jan
Matzeliger, who developed the first machine
to mass-produce shoes, and Elijah McCoy, who
invented automatic lubrication devices for
steam engines. Granville Woods had 35 patents
to improve electric railway systems, including
the first system to allow moving trains to
communicate. Garrett A. Morgan developed the
first automatic traffic signal and gas mask.Lewis
Howard Latimer invented an improvement for
the incandescent light bulb. More recent inventors
include Frederick McKinley Jones, who invented
the movable refrigeration unit for food transport
in trucks and trains. Lloyd Quarterman worked
with six other black scientists on the creation
of the atomic bomb (code named the Manhattan
Project.) Quarterman also helped develop the
first nuclear reactor, which was used in the
atomically powered submarine called the Nautilus.A
few other notable examples include the first
successful open heart surgery, performed by
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, and the air conditioner,
patented by Frederick McKinley Jones. Dr.
Mark Dean holds three of the original nine
patents on the computer on which all PCs are
based. More current contributors include Otis
Boykin, whose inventions included several
novel methods for manufacturing electrical
components that found use in applications
such as guided missile systems and computers,
and Colonel Frederick Gregory, who was not
only the first black astronaut pilot but the
person who redesigned the cockpits for the
last three space shuttles. Gregory was also
on the team that pioneered the microwave instrumentation
landing system.
== Terminology ==
=== General ===
The term African American carries important
political overtones. Earlier terms used to
describe Americans of African ancestry referred
more to skin color than to ancestry, and were
conferred upon the group by colonists and
Americans of European ancestry; people with
dark skins were considered inferior in fact
and in law. Other terms (such as colored,
person of color, or negro) were included in
the wording of various laws and legal decisions
which some thought were being used as tools
of white supremacy and oppression.
A 16-page pamphlet entitled A Sermon on the
Capture of Lord Cornwallis is notable for
the attribution of its authorship to "An African
American". Published in 1782, the book's use
of this phrase predates any other yet identified
by more than 50 years.In the 1980s, the term
African American was advanced on the model
of, for example, German-American or Irish-American
to give descendants of American slaves and
other American blacks who lived through the
slavery era a heritage and a cultural base.
The term was popularized in black communities
around the country via word of mouth and ultimately
received mainstream use after Jesse Jackson
publicly used the term in front of a national
audience in 1988. Subsequently, major media
outlets adopted its use.Surveys show that
the majority of Black Americans have no preference
for African American versus Black American,
although they have a slight preference for
Black American in personal settings and African
American in more formal settings.Many African
Americans have expressed a preference for
the term African American because it was formed
in the same way as the terms for the many
other ethnic groups currently living in the
nation. Some argued further that, because
of the historical circumstances surrounding
the capture, enslavement and systematic attempts
to de-Africanize blacks in the United States
under chattel slavery, most African Americans
are unable to trace their ancestry to a specific
African nation; hence, the entire continent
serves as a geographic marker.
The term African American embraces pan-Africanism
as earlier enunciated by prominent African
thinkers such as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du
Bois and George Padmore. The term Afro-Usonian,
and variations of such, are more rarely used.
=== Identity ===
Since 1977, in an attempt to keep up with
changing social opinion, the United States
government has officially classified black
people (revised to black or African American
in 1997) as "having origins in any of the
black racial groups of Africa." Other federal
offices, such as the United States Census
Bureau, adhere to the Office of Management
and Budget standards on race in its data collection
and tabulations efforts. In preparation for
the United States 2010 Census, a marketing
and outreach plan, called 2010 Census Integrated
Communications Campaign Plan (ICC) recognized
and defined African Americans as black people
born in the United States. From the ICC perspective,
African Americans are one of three groups
of black people in the United States.The ICC
plan was to reach the three groups by acknowledging
that each group has its own sense of community
that is based on geography and ethnicity.
The best way to market the census process
toward any of the three groups is to reach
them through their own unique communication
channels and not treat the entire black population
of the U.S. as though they are all African
Americans with a single ethnic and geographical
background. The U.S. Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation categorizes
black or African-American people as "A person
having origins in any of the black racial
groups of Africa" through racial categories
used in the UCR Program adopted from the Statistical
Policy Handbook (1978) and published by the
Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards,
U.S. Department of Commerce, derived from
the 1977 Office of Management and Budget classification.
=== Admixture ===
Historically, "race mixing" between black
and white people was taboo in the United States.
So-called anti-miscegenation laws, barring
blacks and whites from marrying or having
sex, were established in colonial America
as early as 1691, and endured in many Southern
states until the Supreme Court ruled them
unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia (1967).
The taboo among American whites surrounding
white-black relations is a historical consequence
of the oppression and racial segregation of
African Americans. Historian David Brion Davis
notes the racial mixing that occurred during
slavery was frequently attributed by the planter
class to the "lower-class white males" but
Davis concludes that "there is abundant evidence
that many slaveowners, sons of slaveowners,
and overseers took black mistresses or in
effect raped the wives and daughters of slave
families." A famous example was Thomas Jefferson's
mistress, Sally Hemings.Harvard University
historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in 2009
that "African Americans [ ... ] are a racially
mixed or mulatto people—deeply and overwhelmingly
so" (see genetics). After the Emancipation
Proclamation, Chinese American men married
African-American women in high proportions
to their total marriage numbers due to few
Chinese American women being in the United
States. African slaves and their descendants
have also had a history of cultural exchange
and intermarriage with Native Americans, although
they did not necessarily retain social, cultural
or linguistic ties to Native peoples. There
are also increasing intermarriages and offspring
between non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics
of any race, especially between Puerto Ricans
and African Americans (American-born blacks).
According to author M.M. Drymon, many African
Americans identify as having Scots-Irish ancestry.Racially
mixed marriages have become increasingly accepted
in the United States since the civil rights
movement and up to the present day. Approval
in national opinion polls have risen from
36% in 1978, to 48% in 1991, 65% in 2002,
77% in 2007. A Gallup poll conducted in 2013
found that 84% of whites and 96% of blacks
approved of interracial marriage, and 87%
overall.
=== Terminology dispute ===
In her book The End of Blackness, as well
as in an essay on the liberal website Salon,
author Debra Dickerson has argued that the
term black should refer strictly to the descendants
of Africans who were brought to America as
slaves, and not to the sons and daughters
of black immigrants who lack that ancestry.
In her opinion, President Barack Obama, who
is the son of a Kenyan immigrant, although
technically black, is not African-American.
She makes the argument that grouping all people
of African descent together regardless of
their unique ancestral circumstances would
inevitably deny the lingering effects of slavery
within the American community of slave descendants,
in addition to denying black immigrants recognition
of their own unique ancestral backgrounds.
"Lumping us all together", Dickerson wrote,
"erases the significance of slavery and continuing
racism while giving the appearance of progress".Similar
viewpoints have been expressed by Stanley
Crouch in a New York Daily News piece, Charles
Steele, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and African-American columnist
David Ehrenstein of the Los Angeles Times,
who accused white liberals of flocking to
blacks who were Magic Negros, a term that
refers to a black person with no past who
simply appears to assist the mainstream white
(as cultural protagonists/drivers) agenda.
Ehrenstein went on to say "He's there to assuage
white 'guilt' they feel over the role of slavery
and racial segregation in American history."Former
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was
famously mistaken for a "recent American immigrant"
by French President Nicolas Sarkozy), said
"descendants of slaves did not get much of
a head start, and I think you continue to
see some of the effects of that." She has
also rejected an immigrant designation for
African Americans and instead prefers the
term black or white to denote the African
and European U.S. founding populations.
=== Terms no longer in common use ===
Before the independence of the Thirteen Colonies
until the abolition of slavery in 1865, an
African-American slave was commonly known
as a negro. Free negro was the legal status
in the territory of an African-American person
who was not a slave. The term colored later
also began to be used until the second quarter
of the 20th century, when it was considered
outmoded and generally gave way again to the
exclusive use of negro. By the 1940s, the
term was commonly capitalized (Negro); but
by the mid-1960s, it was considered disparaging.
By the end of the 20th century, negro had
come to be considered inappropriate and was
rarely used and perceived as a pejorative.
The term is rarely used by younger black people,
but remained in use by many older African
Americans who had grown up with the term,
particularly in the southern U.S. The term
remains in use in some contexts, such as the
United Negro College Fund, an American philanthropic
organization that funds scholarships for black
students and general scholarship funds for
39 private historically black colleges and
universities.
There are many other deliberately insulting
terms. Many were in common use (e.g., nigger),
but had become unacceptable in normal discourse
before the end of the 20th century. One exception
is the use, among the black community, of
the slur nigger rendered as nigga, representing
the pronunciation of the word in African American
English. This usage has been popularized by
the rap and hip-hop music cultures and is
used as part of an in-group lexicon and speech.
It is not necessarily derogatory and, when
used among black people, the word is often
used to mean "homie" or "friend".Acceptance
of intra-group usage of the word nigga is
still debated, although it has established
a foothold among younger generations. The
NAACP denounces the use of both nigga and
nigger. Mixed-race usage of nigga is still
considered taboo, particularly if the speaker
is white. However, trends indicate that usage
of the term in intragroup settings is increasing
even among white youth due to the popularity
of rap and hip hop culture.
== Notable people ==
== See also ==
== 
Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
== External links ==
Richard Thompson Ford Name Games, Slate, September
16, 2004. Article discussing the problems
of defining African American
"Of Arms & the Law: Don Kates on Afro-American
Homicide Rates"
Scientific American Magazine (June 2006) Trace
Elements Reconnecting African Americans to
an ancestral past
"The Definition of Political Absurdity", San
Francisco Chronicle, March 2, 2007
African American archaeology in Sacramento,
California pdf
African American archaeology in Oakland, California
– see Part III, Chap 10
Black History related original documents and
photos
President Obama's Speech to the NAACP on July
16, 2009 – full video by MSNBC
Frank Newport, "Black or African American?",
Gallup, September 28, 2007
"The Long Journey of Black Americans" – slideshow
by The First Post
