African American

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African Americans
W.E.B. Du Bois • Martin Luther King, Jr. • Edward Brooke Malcolm X • Rosa Parks • Frederick Douglass
Total population
39,500,000
Regions with significant populations
United States (predominantly Southern) 38,662,569 [29][30]  Liberia (emigrants of the United States) 16,415
Languages
Predominantly American English
Religions
Christianity (predominantly Baptist), Islam
Related ethnic groups
Sub-Saharan Africans and other African groups, some with Native American groups. view • talk • edit

African American topics
History
African American history
African American military history
Atlantic slave trade
History of slavery in the United States
Civil rights (1896 to 1954)
Civil rights (1955 to 1968)
Jim Crow laws · Civil rights
Reparations · Maafa  · Redlining
Religions
Christian churches
Rastafari · Black Jews
Black Hebrew Israelites
Nation of Islam
Doctrine of Father Divine · Ifá
Vodou · Mami Wata · Orisha
Palo · Akan · Santeria
Hoodoo · Spiritism
Church of God in Christ
African Methodist Episcopal Church
Kwanzaa
Political movements
Garveyism · Black nationalism ·
Black supremacy
Pan-African · Black populism
African American leftism
Black conservatism
Black capitalism
Black Panther Party
Civic organizations
Rights groups
NAACP · SCLC · CORE · SNCC
ASALH · UNCF · NPHC · The Links
Sigma Pi Phi
Economic organizations
NBCC
Sports
Negro League (baseball)
CIAA  · SIAC  · MEAC  · SWAC
Culture
African American studies
Contemporary issues
Black Colleges
Art · Dance · Literature
Music · Blackface · Minstrel show
Languages
AA English · Gullah · Creole
Lists
African Americans
Landmark legislation
Related topics
This box: view • talk • edit

An African American (also Afro-American and black American) is a person in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa. Many African Americans possess European, Native American and Asian ancestry as well. In the United States the term is generally used for those of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, and not, for example, for those of European colonial ancestry, such as whites or White South African-European ancestry. The AncestryByDNA indicates that "when African Americans from North America are plotted, we see generally more admixture, which the previous two figures show is statistically significant. Further, there is a tremendous bias towards the European vertex.In other words, the average African American has considerable European ancestry (actually, it’s 19.6%)".

Contents 1 Early History 2 Definition and nomenclature 3 Demographics 4 History 5 Common Terms 6 Economic Status 7 Contemporary issues 8 Impact on the United States 8.1 Political legacy 9 The term "African American" 9.1 Political overtones 9.2 Who is African American? 9.3 Terms no longer in common use 9.4 Criticisms of the term 10 African American population 11 See also 11.1 Other groups 12 Further reading 13 Notes 14 References 15 External links

[edit] Early History

African Americans are considered primarily descendants of enslaved Africans transported via slave ships following the sea route known as the Middle Passage from West and Central Africa to North America and the Caribbean from 1565 through 1807 during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some sources estimate that as many as sixty million - 60,000,000- Africans were enslaved in total. The accurate number will never be known because they were not considered human beings and were not "counted" as such. Other African Americans have arrived in the United States through more recent immigration from the Caribbean, South and Central America and Africa. Black immigrants from African and European nations and predominantly black, non-Hispanic Caribbean countries such as Jamaica, and others, though often referred to by their national origins 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 American assumption is that if a person is black, of predominant unmixed African ancestry, English-speaking and living in the United States, he or she is African American.

Until the events of the American Civil War (1861–1865) and, in particular, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1865) resulted in the abolishment of chattel slavery in the United States, most Blacks in America were slaves.

For the more than three hundred years during which African enslavement was practiced, and again during the Jim Crow era, African Americans were subject to de jure segregation and discrimination and were kept almost entirely out of political power. African Americans were treated inhumanely by White Americans. White Americans forcibly bred African American sons and daughters with their own mothers and fathers, forced them to wear mouth bits like horses in order to break their spirits, often worked or beat them to death, lynched them, completely shut them out of the educational system, punished them for learning to read and committed many other gross injustices against them with the acquiescence of the legal system and the Catholic / Protestant church. African Americans were frequently sold to different owners, completely destroying the African American structure of family so thoroughly that the ramifications are still present to this day.

There are a great many crimes that have been committed by White America against African Americans that are yet to be addressed. As a result, there is currently in existence, an African American (as well as an African) movement of Reparations against the Crime of African Enslavement. African Americans whose ancestors were subject to slavery hope to gain the sort of reparations that Germany paid to Israel and Holocaust survivors as a result of the Holocaust.

The American Civil Rights Movement scored a series of victories from the 1940s into the early 1970s that put an end to de jure segregation and discrimination, made inroads against de facto segregation and discrimination, increased opportunities for African Americans to enter the middle class, and brought African American voices into American politics. However, ongoing racism against African Americans and people of darker skin in general has been very well documented in the areas of employment, housing, politics, health care, and education in the United States.

[edit] Definition and nomenclature

African Americans descend primarily from enslaved Africans brought to the United States, especially the American South, between 1565 and 1807, the majority of whom were brought in the 18th century. About three-quarters of the slaves came from West Africa and the remaining quarter came from the Angola-Congo region.^[1]

http://www.ancestrybydna.com/welcome/productsandservices/ancestrybydna/experiments/ AncestryByDNA Experiments], ancestrybydna.com. Accessed 1 December 2006.</ref>^[2]

Previously acceptable terms that are now viewed as archaic (and, outside of historical contexts, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or the United Negro College Fund) include Negro and Colored; today, the most common term is African American, with Black also commonly accepted since the late 1960s; the term Afro-American was first prominently used in 1961 by a group of activists including Maya Angelou and Leroi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka)^[3] and became common from the late 1960s into the 1980s; it remains generally acceptable, but less common, and has lately been developing a "period" connotation. Blacks are also included in the broader term "people of color".

The history of the use of these terms is evident in the names of various African American organizations founded over time. The civil rights organization the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded 1909, is significantly older than the philanthropic organization the United Negro College Fund, founded in 1944. The term colored had come to be seen as politically incorrect 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.

As the Civil Rights Movement evolved in the 1960s into the Black Power/Black Pride movement, these older terms lost favor and became associated with the pre-civil-rights situation of Blacks in America. Through this movement, the terms Black and Afro-American both emerged into common usage in the late 1960s. Due to this legacy, by 1980, the term Black had become accepted by a majority of Americans of African descent, and had also became the referential term applied by White Americans in general.

In the late 1980s, Blacks began to abandon the term Afro-American, adopting the autonym African American instead. Some did so out of a desire for an unabbreviated expression of their African heritage that could not be mistaken or derided as an allusion to the afro hairstyle. Others wished to assert their pride in their African origins. The term dated back at least to Black nationalist Malcolm X, who favored African American as more historically and culturally defining over other terms, and used it at an OAAU (Organization of Afro American Unity) meeting in the mid-1960s, saying, "Twenty-two million African Americans - that's what we are - Africans who are in America." However, it did not become widely used at that time. During the 1980s, the most influential proponent of the widespread adoption of the term was Jesse Jackson. Jackson and like-minded persons argued that African American was more in keeping with the United States tradition of "hyphenated Americans", which links people with their ancestors' geographic points of origin, and allows people to assert pride in their ethnic heritage, while maintaining an American national identity.

This usage of the term African American generally refers to black African ancestry and American nationality. But generally speaking, the term does not include [[White people|Whites] from Africa. Still, there is disagreement as to whether the term should refer only to Blacks who can trace their American roots to the colonial period or slavery, or whether it also should include black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America and their descendants. To some extent, this is a matter of cultural vs. geographic meaning. In the narrow sense, the term refers only to those descended from a small number of colonial indentured servants and the estimated 500,000 Africans taken to British North America (later becoming the United States) as slaves (of approximately 10 - 12 million Africans taken to the Western Hemisphere in general). In a 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, (for example, as Nigerian, Dominican or Jamaican), instead of African American. However, under certain circumstances these groups that have existed in the Central American and Caribbean region since the 1600s will be called black by people from these diverse regions.

[edit] Demographics

Metropolitan Areas with High Populations of African Americans (2000 Census)

Rank	Metropolitan Area	African American Population	% of African Americans
1st	New York City, New York	2,166,576	28
2nd	Chicago, Illinois	1,557,619	36.39
3rd	Los Angeles, California	1,288,470	22.9
4th	Atlanta, Georgia	1,189,179	61.39
5th	Detroit, Michigan	1,024,353	81.55
6th	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	1,023,425	43.2
7th	Washington, D.C.	924,518	55.1
8th	Houston, Texas	727,165	25.31
9th	Baltimore, Maryland	703,323	64.34
10th	Dallas, Texas	530,715	25.91

In 1790, when the first census was taken, African Americans numbered about 760,000—about 48.3% 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. African Americans were once the largest minority in the United States, but are now second, only behind Hispanics or Latinos of any race. 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. 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.

Almost 58 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, overall the city has a 28 percent black population. Chicago has the second largest black population, with almost 1.6 million African Americans in its metropolitan area, representing about 18 percent of the total metropolitan population. 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 (though it should be noted that the 2006 Census estimate puts the city's population below 100,000.) Nonetheless, Gary is followed closely by Detroit, Michigan, with 83 percent African American. Atlanta, Georgia, has a substantial African American population of about 65 percent. Baltimore, Maryland, has a high African American population of 64 percent. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 43 percent, Washington, D.C., with 60 percent, and Memphis, Tennessee with 61 percent, are also large African American population centers.

The nation's most affluent county with a majority African American population is Prince George's County, Maryland, with a median income of $62,467. Other affluent African American majority counties include Dekalb County in Georgia, and Charles City County in Virginia. Queens County, New York, which is the only county with a population of 65,000 or more where African Americans have a higher household income than White Americans.

[edit] History

Main article: African American history

Blacks in America are descended from many diverseethnic groups. Members of over 40 identifiable ethnic groups from at least 25 different kingdoms were sold to British North America (which later became Canada and the United States) during the Atlantic slave trade. These African slaves 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 the south of Morocco, Mauritania, Senegambia (present-day Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea and Guinea Bissau), Sierra Leone (also includes the area of present-day Liberia), the Windward Coast (present-day Ivory Coast), the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana and surrounding areas), the Bight of Benin (present-day Togo, Benin and western Nigeria), the Bight of Biafra (Nigeria south of the Benue River, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea), Central Africa (Gabon, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Southeast Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar).

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.

Throughout the period of African enslavement, various types of slavery developed. The types of crops grown (rice, cotton, tobacco, etc), led to varying types of slavery. The schedules of planting, tilling, sowing and harvesting throughout the seasons of the year led to different work regimens and different frequencies of owner-'property' interactions. The majority of slaves were owned by farmers who owned less than three slaves. This sometimes led to an intense blending of culture and sexual relations. In these situations it also enabled the enslaved a modicum of power through work stoppage and running away to nearby plantations during critical times of the year to barter for better treatment and working conditions.

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 led to the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). 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 race. This movement was strongest in the Southern United States and it often revolved around black southern universities such as Tuskegee University and 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. Some 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 hard work and education could accelerate their social evolution. The plight of most black people did not improve during this time due to racist political policies supported by many Whites in conjunction with 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. 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 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 (black) unity, solidarity and pan-Africanism. By the end of the 1960s, 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.

[edit] Common Terms

1. Brown v Topeka

Black children were denied admission to public schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to the races. White and black schools approached equality in terms of buildings, curricula, qualifications, and teacher salaries. It was a case that was decided together with Briggs v. Elliott and Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County.

2. Little Rock

Representing the struggle for equal educational opportunity for African Americans. Focusing on these two communities, this highlights two important historic places and the role each played in testing the prevailing assumptions of the time regarding racial integration of schools. It is also about conflict between the rule of law versus mob rule, and the importance of a free press in exposing social injustice

3. Montgomery Bus Boycott

Started on December 1, 1955. That was the day when the blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, decided that they would boycott the city buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted, instead of it being relegated to the back when a white boarded. It was not, however, the day that the movement to desegregate the buses started 4. Greensboro Sit-ins

Began on February 1, 1960, when four NC a&T freshmen shown in the mural photograph sat down at the downtown Woolworth lunch counter and tried to order something to eat and drink. Were told that people of their race had to stand up at another counter to eat

5. Freedoms Rides

A series of non-violent, direct demonstrations performed in 1961 as part of the U.S. civil rights movement. African American and white (volunteers), many of whom were college students, called Freedom Riders, rode in interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the 1960 United States. The Supreme Court decided Boynton v. Virginia, (1960) 364 U.S. 454, which outlawed racial segregation in interstate transportation facilities, including bus stations and railroad terminals

6. Freedom Summer

A campaign in the United States that launched during the summer of 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in the Southern United States. They decided that this campaign would continue the interest in civil rights and the precedents set by the Freedom Riders 7. The assassination of Martin Luther King

Dead in the southern US city of Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting against the low wages and poor working conditions

8. Give the provisions of the voting rights act.

Voting rights act were set to expire next year. Requirements that states and counties with a history of discrimination. Clear any changes to their election process with federal authorities. Those federal observers are present if there is evidence that voters have been intimidated. Those counties with significant non-English-speaking populations provide bilingual ballots

[edit] Economic Status

The collective economic status of African Americans is a matter of contentious debate, with statistics simultaneously suggesting both the residual effects of historical marginalization and sustained progress for large sections of the population in the United States, and the greater affluence of the group when compared to populations outside of the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income of African Americans as a group is roughly 65 percent^[4] of that of "white" people, that is, "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.^[5] The only county in the nation with a population over 65,000 where the median income among black households surpasses that of whites is Queens in New York City (the median income among black households there was close to $52,000 in 2005).^[6] Racial economic disparities are greatest of all at the highest levels of income, although this economic super elite does not reflect any American population collective, black or otherwise.

According to Forbes magazine's "wealthiest American" lists, a 2000 net-worth of $800 million dollars made (by 2006 1.5 billion USD) Oprah Winfrey the richest African American of the 20th century in sharp contrast to the 20th century's richest White American Bill Gates whose net-worth briefly hit $100 billion in 1999 However, in Forbes' list of 2006, Gates' net worth decreased to $53 billion USD while Winfrey's net worth increased to $1.5 billion USD,^[7][8] making her the richest Black person on the face of the planet,^[9][10] and the first African American to make Business Week's 50 greatest philanthropists list.^[11]

BET founder Bob Johnson, was also listed as a billionaire prior to an expensive divorce and has recently regained his fortune through a series of real estate investments. Forbes estimates his net worth at $1.1 billion USD solitifying him as the only male billionaire of predominantly African decent.

Despite the poverty levels of many African American communities in the United States, African Americans collectively are more affluent than most other groups outside of the country. In 2006 the Selig Center estimated African Americans to have $852.8 billion USD in purchasing power, as a country African Americans would be the 18th wealthest nation. Current information points to a continuation of a long-term trend toward parity with national levels and absolutely higher levels of affluence than those experienced by most populations outside the United States. Packaged Facts estimate African American purchasing power will be $981 billion by 2010.^{[citation needed]} Since the mid to late 1990s, African American incomes have risen at a remarkable pace and the progress shows up at every income level - from the still-large but shrinking underclass, to the fast-developing black middle class, to the growing ranks of wealthy African Americans.^{[citation needed]} Over 1.7 million African Americans have gone off the poverty rolls; earnings by African American women have moved to within a few percentage points of white women's; and unemployment among blacks in recent years has dropped below the 10 percent mark.^{[citation needed]} The poverty rate among African Americans has dropped from 26.5% in 1998 to 24.7% in 2004.^[15] The growth in African American incomes is translating into big gains in buying power and opportunities for black businesses.^{[citation needed]}

By 2003, sex had replaced race as the primary factor in life expectancy in the United States, with African American females expected to live longer than white males born in that year.^[16] In the same year, the gap in life expectancy between American whites (78.0) and blacks (72.8) had decreased to 5.2 years, reflecting a long term trend of this phenomenon.^[16] The current life expectancy of African Americans as a group is comparable to those of other groups who live in countries with a high human development index. In 2004, African American workers had the second-highest median earnings of American minority groups after Asian Americans, and African Americans had the highest level of male-female income parity of all ethnic groups in the United States.^[17] Also, among American minority groups, only Asian Americans were more likely to hold white collar occupations (management, professional, and related fields),^[18] and African Americans were no more or less likely than whites to work in the service industry.^[19] In 2001, over half of African American households of married couples earned $50,000 or more.^[19] 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.^[19]

Collectively, African Americans are more involved in the American political process than other minority groups in the US, indicated by the highest level of voter registration and participation in elections among these groups in 2004. [3] African Americans collectively attain higher levels of education than immigrants to the United States.^[20]

Although the unemployment rate among African Americans (in 2002, approximately 11% [4] has typically been twice the rate among European Americans (app. 5% in the same year, [5]), it is still at or below rates found in France and Spain [6], [7], and is slightly higher than the overall rate of the European Union [8].

When compared to populations outside of the United States and European Union, the collective affluence of African Americans is even more striking and disproportionate. Based on worker income alone (excluding purchasing power parity and extra wealth, both of which would accentuate the comparative affluence of African Americans), African Americans produced $586 billion in 2004[9],[10], slightly smaller than the GDP of Brazil in 2006 (even though Brazil's population is about 5 times the size of the African American one) [11], and approximately 80% the size of Russia's 2005 GDP (even though Russia's population is nearly 4 times the size of the African American one [12]. In 2004 this amount would have been ranked as the 15th largest GDP internationally (out of 177 ranked) [13], compared to a population ranking of 33 in 2005 [14]. In 2005, the populations of Poland and African Americans were roughly equal, but the 2004 earnings of the latter group would have been nearly 2.5 times the size of the former's GDP in 2005[15]. In 2005, the Ukraine's population was approximately 10% larger than the African American population, but its GDP was over 8 times smaller than the 2004 earnings of the latter group. Argentina, arguably the most developed country in Latin American (with an overwhelmingly European population (97%)), has an unemployment rate slightly higher than that of African Americans as a group, a poverty rate is almost twice the rate [16], and the 2004 earnings of African American workers were nearly 3.5 times the size of Argentina's 2005 GDP, even though Argentina's population is slightly larger than the African American population [17]. In Mexico, whose human development index is comparable to those of most former Second World countries, and whose economy ranks as a mid-income one, the poverty rate is twice the rate of African Americans as a group [18], and even though its 2005 population was nearly 3 times the population of African Americans, Mexico's GDP from the same year exceeded the 2004 earnings of African American workers by only 25%[19].

[edit] Contemporary issues

Main article: African American contemporary issues

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, policing, criminal justice and employment; crime, poverty and substance abuse. One of the most serious and long standing issues within African American communities is poverty. Poverty itself is a hardship as it is related to marital stress and dissolution, health problems, low educational attainment, deficits in psychological functioning, and crime.^[21] In 2004, 24.7% of African American families lived below the poverty level.^[22]

Crime, particularly in impoverished, urban communities, is a serious and ongoing issue in America. The African American population in many urban areas are disproportionately poor, a factor which resonate in the nation's crime statistics for metropolitan areas.

With no system of universal healthcare, access to medical care in the U.S. generally is mediated by income level and employment status. As a result, African Americans, who as a group are disproportionately poor and unemployed, are more often uninsured than non Hispanic whites or Asians.^[23] For a great many African Americans, healthcare delivery is limited, or nonexistent. And when they receive healthcare, they are more likely than others in the general population to receive substandard, even injurious medical care.^[24] African Americans have a higher prevalence of some chronic health conditions,^[25] and a higher rate of out-of-wedlock births relative to the general population. 56% of African American children are born into families where the mother is not married to the biological father. In 1998, single women headed 54% of African American households.^[21]

Many of these contemporary issues, problems and potential remedies have been the subject of intense public policy debate in the United States in general, and within the African American community in particular.

Aids in African American Community are still the most racial group affected by HIV/AIDS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was estimated "184,991 adult and adolescent HIV infections diagnosed during 2001-2005"(1). It says that more than 51 percent occurred among blacks than any other race. Between the ages of 25-44 years 62 percent were African Americans. Dr. Robert Janssen(2007) "We have rates of HIV/AIDS among blacks in some American cities that are as high as in come countries in Africa". The rate for African Americans with HIV/AIDS in Washington D.C. is 3 percent, based on cases reported. In a New York Times Article, about 50 percent of AIDS death releated were African American woman, which accounted for 25 percent of the city's population. In Many cases there are a higher proportion of black people being tested than any other racial group. Dr Janssen goes on by saying "We need to do a better job of encouraging African Amercians to test. Studies show that approximately one in five black men between the ages 40 to 49 living in the city is HIV-positive, according to the TIMES. Research indicates that African Americans sexual behavior is no different than any other racial group. Dr. Janssen says "Racial groups tent to have sex with members of their own racial group.(BlackAIDS.ORG,2007,(10).

[edit] Impact on the United States

From their earliest presence in North America, African Americans have contributed literature, art, agricultural skills, foods, clothing styles, music, language, social and technological innovation to American culture. The cultivation and use of many agricultural products in the U.S., such as yams, peanuts, rice, okra, sorghum, grits, watermelon, indigo dyes, and cotton, can be traced to African and African American influences. A couple of notable examples include George Washington Carver, who created 300 products from peanuts, 118 products from sweet potatoes, and 75 from pecans; and George Crum, who invented the potato chip in 1853.[20]

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, techno, blues, country and other contemporary American musical forms originated in black communities and evolved from other black forms of music including blues, jazz, and gospel music. African American derived musical forms have also influenced and been incorporated into virtually every other popular musical genre in the world. 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 (Stewart 1998, p.3).

African Americans have also have an important role in American forms of 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 impact 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.

Many African American authors have written stories, poems, and essays influenced by their experiences as African Americans, and African American literature is a major genre in American literature. Famous examples include Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou. African American inventors have created many widely used devices in the world and have contributed to international innovation. Though most slave inventors were nameless, such as the slave owned by the Confederate President Jefferson Davis who designed the ship propeller used by the entire Confederate navy, but following the Civil War, the growth of industry in the United States was tremendous and much of this was made possible with inventions by ethnic minorities. 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. He even sued Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison for stealing his patents and won both cases. Garrett Morgan developed the first automatic traffic signal and gas mask, and Norbert Rilleux who created the technique for converting sugar cane juice into white sugar crystals. Moreover, Rillieux was so brilliant that in 1854 he left Louisiana and went to France where he spent ten years working with the Champollions deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone. [21]

Lewis Latimer created an inexpensive cotton-thread filament, which made electric light bulbs practical because Edison's original light bulb only burned for a few minutes. More recent inventors include McKinley Jones, who invented the movable refrigeration unit for food transport in trucks and trains and Lloyd Quarterman who with six other Black scientists, worked on the creation of the atomic bomb along (code named the Manhattan Project.) Quaterman also helped develop the first nuclear reactor, which was used in the atomically powered submarine called the Nautilus. [22]

A few other notable examples include the first successful open heart surgery, performed by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the conceptualization and establishment of blood banks around the world by Dr. Charles Drew, the air conditioner, patented by Frederick M. 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 Bodkin, who invented an electrical device used in all guided missiles and all IBM computers, and Colonel Frederick Gregory, who was not only the first Black astronaut pilot but the person who also redesigned the cockpits for the last three space shuttles. Gregory was also on the team that pioneered the microwave instrumentation landing system. In 2000, Bendix Aircraft Company began a worldwide promotion of this microwave instrumentation landing system. [23]

[edit] Political legacy

The gains made by African Americans in the civil rights and Black Power movements not only obtained certain rights for African Americans, but changed American society in far-reaching and fundamentally important ways. Prior to the 1950s, Americans were still living in the shadow of slavery and Jim Crow, when, 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…."[24]

The Civil Rights Movement marked a sea-change in American social, political, economic and civic life. It brought with it boycotts, sit-ins, demonstrations, court battles, bombings and other violence; prompted worldwide media coverage and intense public debate; forged enduring civic, economic and religious alliances; disrupted and realigned the nation's two major political parties; and over time has changed in fundamental ways the manner in which blacks and whites interact with and relate to one another. Ultimately, the movement resulted in the removal of codified, de jure racial segregation and discrimination from American life and law and heavily influenced the civil and social liberties that many Americans of varied cultural backgrounds expect for themselves. The precedents set by the Civil Rights Movement in terms of strategies and tactics, as well as goals achieved, influenced the Free Speech Movement, the struggles of farm workers and migrant laborers in the United Farm Workers union, the American Indian Movement, the effort to secure equal rights and expand opportunities for women, Latinos, low-income people, LGBT rights, the physically handicapped, the hearing impaired, and other ethnic minorities. Further, the struggle of African Americans for constitutional and human rights endures as a model for disenfranchised and oppressed groups worldwide in their struggles for civil and human rights and self-determination.

[edit] The term "African American"

[edit] Political overtones

The term African American carries important political overtones. Earlier, terms used to identify Americans of African ancestry were conferred upon the group by Americans of European ancestry and were included in the wording of various laws and legal decisions which became tools of white supremacy and oppression. There developed among blacks in America a growing desire for a term of their own choosing.

With the political consciousness that emerged from the political and social ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the term Negro fell into disfavor among many blacks. It had taken on a moderate, accommodationist, even Uncle Tom, connotation. In this period, a growing number of blacks in the U.S., particularly African American youth, celebrated their blackness and their historical and cultural ties with the African continent. The Black Power movement defiantly embraced Black as a group identifier—a term they themselves had repudiated only two decades earlier—a term often associated in English with things negative and undesirable, proclaiming, "Black is beautiful".

In this same period, a smaller number favored Afro-American. In the 1980s the term African American was coined on the model of, for example, German American. It was largely popularized by Jesse Jackson, and quickly adopted by major media outlets. Many blacks in America expressed a preference for the term as it was formed in the same way as the names for other ethnic groups. Some argued further that, because of the historical circumstances surrounding the capture, enslavement and systematic attempts to de-Africanize blacks in the U.S. 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.

For many, African American is more than a name expressive of cultural and historical roots. The term expresses African pride and a sense of kinship and solidarity with others of the African diaspora—an embracing of the notion of pan-Africanism earlier enunciated by prominent African thinkers such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Dubois and, later, George Padmore.

A discussion of the term African American and related terms can be found in the journal article "The Politicization of Changing Terms of Self Reference Among American Slave Descendants" in American Speech v 66 is 2 Summer 1991 p. 133-46.

[edit] Who is African American?

This section does not cite its references or sources. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) Any unsourced material that has been or is likely to be challenged may be removed at any time. This article has been tagged since January 2007.

Since 1977, the United States officially categorized Black people (revised to Black or African American in 1997) are classified as A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.^[26]. North Africa is considered part of the 'black racial groups(africa is the dark continent,' and people of North African descent are classified as black people.^[26] Other Federal offices, such as the United States Census Bureau and the adheres to the OMB standards on race in its data collection and tabulations efforts.^[27] The U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation also categorizes Black or African-American people as "A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa" through 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 OMB classification.^[28]

Due in part to a centuries-old history within the United States of America, historical experiences pre- and post-slavery, and migrations throughout North America, the vast majority of contemporary African Americans possess varying degrees of admixture with European and Native American ancestry.

Some courts have called a person black if the person had any known African ancestry. It became known as the one-drop rule, meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person "black". Some courts have called it the traceable amount rule, and anthropologists used to call it the hypodescent rule, meaning that racially mixed persons were assigned the status of the subordinate group. Prior to the one-drop rule, different states had different laws regarding color; in Virginia, for example, a person was legally black if he or she had at least one-sixteenth black ancestry. The one-drop rule was implemented by states in the southern United States during the early to mid-1880s^{[citation needed]}. This definition was not taken into accounts in regards to the Spanish speaking population (because as it stands, 'one-drop' is racist pseudoscience; it is not scientific concept, but merely a psychological and social one). This definition eventually emerged from the American South to become America's national definition, generally accepted by whites and blacks -- but for different reasons.

For African Americans, the one-drop system of pigmentocracy was a significant factor in ethnic solidarity. African Americans generally shared a common lot in society and, therefore, common cause -- regardless of their multiracial admixture or social and economic stratification.

In the 1980s, parents of mixed-race children began to organize and lobby for the addition of a more inclusive term of racial designation that would reflect the heritage of their children. In recent decades, as the multicultural climate of the United States has continued to expand. Although the terms mixed, biracial and multiracial are increasingly used, it remains common for those who possess any visible traits of black heritage to identify or be identified solely within black/African American ethnic groups. As well, it is very common in the United States for people of mixed ancestry possessing any recent African American or black heritage to self-identify demographically as black/African American while acknowledging both their African American and other cultural heritages socially.

[edit] Terms no longer in common use

The terms Negro or colored, which were widely used until mid 1960s, has become inappropriate or derogatory. Once widely considered acceptable, Negro and colored fell into disfavor for reasons already herein stated. The self-referential term of preference for Negro became black. The term survives in certain historical organizations such as the United Negro College Fund and defunct organizations like the Negro Leagues.

Negroid was a term used by anthropologists first in the 18th century to describe indigenous Africans and their descendants throughout the African diaspora. As with most descriptors of race based on inconsistent, unscientific phenotypical standards, the term is controversial and imprecise. Because of its similarity to Negro, growing numbers of blacks have substituted the term Africoid which, unlike Negroid, encompasses the phenotypes of all indigenous peoples of Africa.

[edit] Criticisms of the term

There is some criticism of the term 'African American'. To be African American, some argue that an individual would have to be born in Africa, then immigrate to the U.S., and then obtain citizenship. By this definition, an overwhelming majority of Black Americans would not be African American, but of African descent. The term can also be interpreted to include non-black immigrants from Africa to the United States, such as white South Africans or Arab Africans, although these groups generally do not refer to themselves as African American nor generally thought of as such in the United States. Black is still a more widely used and accepted term in the United States. African American is widely viewed more as a media created term.

The term 'African American' has also been misused by some in lieu of 'Black', regardless of an individual's nationality, ethnicity or geography. For example, during the 2005 civil unrest in France, CNN anchorwoman Carol Lin referred to the rioters as "African Americans". [25] This leads to the belief amongst many opponents of the term that 'African American' presents an 'American-centric' view of black people across the world.

Defenders of the term argue that the term was never meant to encompass all Africans, or even all black people, but only those individuals formerly referred to as 'American Negroes', primarily people whose ancestors survived the Middle Passage and slavery. Further, in the U.S., which is often described as a nation of immigrants, hyphenated American terms historically have been used to indicate one's national origin, or that of one's ancestors.

By virtue of this, any person born in Africa would take on the name of his or her country of origin. For example, an individual from Nigeria would be called a 'Nigerian-American', as the term is descriptive of national origin, as opposed to 'African American'. Many prefer the term 'African American' because, although the historical national origin of the majority of black Americans is untraceable, the continent of Africa serves as an indicator of geographic origin and a descriptive term.

[edit] African American population

The following gives the African American population in the U.S. over time, based on U.S. Census figures. (Numbers from years 1920 to 2000 are based on U.S. Census figures as given by the Time Almanac of 2005, p 377)

Year	Number	Percentage of total population	Slaves	Percentage of African American population in slavery
1790	757,208	19.3% (highest)	697,681	92%
1800	1,002,037	18.9%	893,602	89%
1810	1,377,808	19.0%	1,191,362	86%
1820	1,771,656	18.4%	1,538,022	87%
1830	2,328,642	18.1%	2,009,043	86%
1840	2,873,648	16.8%	2,487,355	87%
1850	3,638,808	15.7%	3,204,287	88%
1860	4,441,830	14.1%	3,953,731	89%
1870	4,880,009	12.7%
1880	6,580,793	13.1%
1890	7,488,788	11.9%
1900	8,833,994	11.6%
1910	9,827,763	10.7%
1920	10.5 million	9.9%
1930	11.9 million	9.7% (lowest)
1940	12.9 million	9.8%
1950	15.0 million	10.0%
1960	18.9 million	10.5%
1970	22.6 million	11.1%
1980	26.5 million	11.7%
1990	30.0 million	12.1%
2000	36.6 million	12.3%

note: The CIA World Factbook gives the current 2006 figure as 12.9% [26]

[edit] See also

• Africans in the United States
• Category:African Americans
• African American National Biography Project
• Definitions of black people
• List of African Americans
• List of African-American-related topics
• List of African American Republicans
• List of U.S. metropolitan areas with large African-American populations
• List of U.S. cities with large African-American populations
• Race, Hyphenated American
• African American art
• Terminology: Blacks, Colored, Creole, Negro
• African American history
  • Racial segregation
  • Black nationalism
• African Diaspora
• African American literature
• African American Vernacular English
• Affirmative action
• Black Indians
• Atlanticism
• African and Native American interaction

[edit] Other groups

Sometimes referred to as the "African Diaspora" or persons of racial Sub-Saharan African ancestry, most live in Europe and the western hemisphere, but can live in smaller numbers in Asia (African college students in China) and Australia (indigenous Aborigines not related to Africans are sometimes called "black").

• Americo-Liberian
• Afro-Argentinian
• Afro-Austrian
• Afro-Arabs in Arabia and the Middle East.
• Afro-Belgian
• Black British
• Afro-Brazilian
• African-Canadian
• Afro-Chilean
• Afro-Cuban
• Afro-Danish
• Black Dutch of the Netherlands.
• Afro-Ecuadorian
• Afro-Egyptian
• African European
• Afro-Filipino
• Afro-French
• Garifuna
• Afro-German
• Afro-Guatemalan
• African Americans in Hawaii, US.
• Afro-Honduran
• Black Israelis, includes Ethiopian and some Sudanese Jews.
• Afro-Italian
• Afro-Japanese, very small African population of American origin.
• Afro-Latin American
• Afro-Mexican
• Afro-Nicaraguan
• North African- of Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia of sub-saharan African ancestry.
• Afro-Panamanian
• Afro-Peruvian
• Afro-Polish
• Afro-Portuguese includes ex-Portugal African expatriates.
• Black Russians, persons of African descent in Russia.
• Afro-Singaporean, very small group of African descent.
• Afro-Spanish
• Afro-Swedish
• Black Swiss, Africans in Switzerland.
• Afro-Trinidadian
• Afro-Turks in Turkey.
• Afro-Uruguayan
• Afro-Venezuelan
• Afro-Belizean
• Afro-Costa Rican

[edit] Further reading

• Jack Salzman, ed., Encyclopedia of Afro-American culture and history, New York, NY  : Macmillan Library Reference USA, 1996
• African American Lives, edited by Henry L. Gates, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Oxford University Press, 2004 - more than 600 biographies
• From Slavery to Freedom. A History of African Americans, by John Hope Franklin, Alfred Moss, McGraw-Hill Education 2001, standard work, first edition in 1947
• Black Women in America - An Historical Encyclopedia, Darlene Clark Hine (Editor), Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (Editor), Elsa Barkley Brown (Editor), Paperback Edition, Indiana University Press 2005
• van Sertima, Ivan "They Came Before Columbus"

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Brandon S. Centerwall, "Race, Socioeconomic Status and Domestic Homicide, Atlanta, 1971-72", 74 AM. J. PUB. HLTH. 813, 815 (1984)
• Darnell F. Hawkins, "Inequality, Culture, and Interpersonal Violence", 12 HEALTH AFFAIRS 80 (1993)
• Jerome A. Neapolitan, "Cross-National Variation in Homicide; Is Race A Factor?" 36 CRIMINOLOGY 139 (1998)
• Bohlen, C. "Does She Say the Same Things in her Native Tongue?" New York Times, May 18, 1986
• Felder, J. (1992) From the Statue of Liberty to the Statue of Bigotry. New York: Jack Felder.
• Felder, J. "Black Origins and Lady Liberty". Daily Challenge. July 16, 1990
• Sinclair, T. Was Original Statue a Tribute to Blacks? New York Voice, July 5, 1986
• The New York Post, "Statue of Liberty" June 17, 1986.
• Altman, Susan "The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage"
• The Music of Black Americans: A History. Eileen Southern. W. W. Norton & Company; 3rd edition, (1997). ISBN 0-393-97141-4
• Stewart, Earl L. (1998). African American Music: An Introduction. ISBN 0-02-860294-3.

www.blackaids.org www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/africanamericanhealth.html BlackAIDS.ORG,2007,(10).

[edit] 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.
• African American Business
• "The Definition of Political Absurdity", San Francisco Chronicle, March 2, 2007. Editorial discussing prominent Americans arguing whether presidential candidate Barack Obama qualifies as "black enough."
• African American archaeology in Sacramento, California pdf
• African American archaeology in Oakland, California - See Part III, Chap 10.