(Redirected from African Americans)
'African Americans' or 'Black Americans' are citizens or residents of the
United States whose
ancestors, usually in predominant part, were
indigenous to
Sub-Saharan Africa.
[1] It is estimated that a significant number of African Americans also have
European heritage, with the typical African American possessing around 20% European ancestry.
[2] In the United States the term is generally used for Americans with predominantly Sub-Saharan African ancestry. Most African Americans are the descendants of captive Africans who were
enslaved within the boundaries of the present United States, although some are—or are descended from—voluntary immigrants from Africa, the
Caribbean,
South America, or elsewhere.
History
Main articles: African American history
African Americans are primarily descended from slaves sold to
British North America (which later became
Canada and the
United States) during the
Atlantic slave trade. By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved Africans in the
Southern United States, and another 500,000 Africans lived free across the country.
[3] In 1863, during the
American Civil War,
President Abraham Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared all slaves in states that has seceded from the Union were free.
[4] Advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation with Texas being the last state to be emancipated in 1865.
[5] While the post-war
reconstruction era was initially a time of progress for African Americans, in the late 1890s, Southern states enacted
Jim Crow laws to enforce
racial segregation and
disenfranchisement.
[6] Most African Americans followed the Jim Crow laws and assumed a posture of
humility and servility to prevent becoming victims of
racially motivated violence. To maintain self-esteem and dignity,
middle-class African Americans created their own
schools,
churches,
banks,
social clubs, and other businesses.
[7]
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. These discriminatory acts included
racial segregation – upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in
Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896
[8] - 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. The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South that sparked the
Great Migration of the early 20th century,
[9] 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. 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. 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.
[10]
Demographics
African Americans as percent of population, 2000.
In 1790, when the first
census was taken, slaves and
free Negroes numbered about 760,000—about 19.3% 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 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
Sunbelt than leaving it.
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) The
CIA World Factbook gives a 2006 figure of 12.9%
[11] Controversy has surrounded the "accurate" population count of African Americans for decades. The NAACP believed it was under counted intentionally to minimize the significance of the black population in order to reduce their political power base.
| Year | Number | % of total population | Slaves | % 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% | - | - |
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.
[12] 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 84 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, which was 82 percent African-American. Other large cities with African-American majorities include
New Orleans, Louisiana (67 percent),
Baltimore, Maryland (64 percent)
Atlanta, Georgia (61 percent),
Memphis, Tennessee (61 percent) and
Washington, D.C. (60 percent).
The nation's most affluent county with an African American majority is
Prince George's County, Maryland, with a median income of $62,467. Other affluent predominantly African American counties include
Dekalb County in Georgia, and
Charles City County in Virginia.
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.
Contemporary issues
Main articles: 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. Nevertheless, 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.
[13] In 2004, 24.7% of African American families lived below the poverty level.
Economic status
.jpg)
Oprah Winfrey, the richest African American of the 20th century and the world's only black billionaire for three straight years.
[14]
Economically, blacks have benefited from the advances made during the
Civil Rights era, particularly among the educated, but not without the lingering effects of historical marginalzation when considered as a whole. The racial disparity in poverty rates has narrowed. The black
middle class has grown substantially. In 2000, 47% of African Americans owned their homes. The poverty rate among African Americans has dropped from 26.5% in 1998 to 24.7% in 2004.
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.
[16] Also, among American
minority groups, only
Asian Americans were more likely to hold
white collar occupations (management, professional, and related fields),
[17] and African Americans were no more or less likely than whites to work in the service industry.
[18] 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.
By 2006, gender continued to be the primary factor in income level, with the median earnings of African American more than those black and non-black American women overall and in all educational levels.
[19][20][21][22][23] 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 white counterparts, although the gap narrowed somewhat with a rise educational level.
[24][25] 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.
[26][27][28] 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-, white and Hispanic American counterparts with at least some college education.
[29][30][31]
However, African Americans are still underrepresented in government and employment. In 1999, the median income of African American families was $33,255 compared to $53,356 of Whites. 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 September 2004 unemployment rate for blacks was 10.3%, while their white counterparts were unemployed at the rate of 4.7%.
The income gap between black and white families is also significant. In 2005, Employed blacks earned only 65% of the wages of whites in comparable jobs, down from 82% in 1975.
[32] Although rates of births to unwed mothers among both blacks and whites have risen since the 1950s, the rate of such births among African Americans is three times the rate of whites.
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,
[33][34] making her the richest Black person,
[35][36] and the first African American to make Business Week's 50 greatest philanthropists list.
[37] 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 solidifying him as the only male billionaire of predominantly African decent.
Health
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.
[38] 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.
38 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.
With no system of
universal health care, 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.
[39] 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.
[40] African Americans have a higher prevalence of some chronic health conditions,
[41] 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.
13
African Americans are the American racial group most affected by
HIV and
AIDS, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It has been estimated that "184,991 adult and adolescent HIV infections [were] diagnosed during 2001-2005" (1). 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) states, "We have rates of HIV/AIDS among blacks in some American cities that are as high as in some 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-related deaths 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 Americans 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 tend to have sex with members of their own racial group.
Politics and Social Issues
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.
[42] African Americans collectively attain higher levels of education than immigrants to the United States.
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.
Cultural influence in 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.
[43]
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,
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, 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
[44].
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.
Two African American children
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 Rillieux 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.
[45]
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.) 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, 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.
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…."
[46]
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 term "African American"
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. Du Bois,
Haile Selassie of
Ethiopia 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.
Who is African American?
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.''
[47] 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.
[48] 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 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.
[49]
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.
[50][51]
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 . 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-race, 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 black heritage to self-identify demographically as African American while acknowledging both their African American and other cultural heritages socially.
Terms no longer in common use
The terms
Negro or
Colored, which were widely used until mid 1960s, have 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 as well as the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
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 or "African variant" which, unlike Negroid, encompasses the phenotypes of all
indigenous peoples of Africa.
[52]
Criticisms of the term
To be African American, some argue that an individual would have to be born in Africa. 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. (The blonde actress
Charlize Theron, who was born in
South Africa to
Afrikaner parents, is not referred to as African American. Senator
Barack Obama, who has one African parent, generally is, although some people question this classification.
Forensic anthropologist Clea Koff, who also has one African parent, is in the same category as Obama, but is also called
racially mixed, a slightly vaguer 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".
[53]
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—most African nations were named centuries after most slaves were imported— the continent of
Africa serves as an indicator of geographic origin and a descriptive term.
Greatest African Americans
In 2005 the
Discovery Channel and
America Online teamed to conduct a massive election in which they asked Americans to nominate the
Greatest American of all time. Millions of votes were cast and the final list of the 100 Greatest Americans of all time contained 17 African Americans.
Four Greatest African Americans
The following four African Americans were considered greatest by the voting public:
Other nominees
The following African Americans were also among the 100 Greatest Americans[ Discovery Channel ::Greatest American: Top 100 ]:
See also
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"
Notes
1. Race
2. The African American MS Genetics Project
3. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
4. The Emancipation Proclamation
5. History of Juneteenth
6. Creating Jim Crow: In-Depth Essay
7. Surviving Jim Crow
8. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) (full text with hyperlinks to cited material)
9. The Great Migration
10. Civil Rights bill submitted, and date of JFK murder, plus graphic events of the March on Washington. This is an Abbeville Press website, a large informative article apparently from their book ''The Civil Rights Movement'' (ISBN 0-7892-0123-2).
11. United States - CIA World Factbook
12. [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/timelin2.html Time Line of African American History, 1881-1900
13. Characteristics of African American Families Oscar Barbarin, PhD
14. Oprah Winfrey the richest black person in the world, , , , African Echo,
15. #562 Oprah Winfrey
16. Incomes, Earnings, and Poverty from the 2004 American Community Survey
17. Occupations: 2000 Peter Fronczek and Patricia Johnson
18. The Black Population in the United States: March 2002 Jesse McKinnon
19. [1]
20. [2]
21. [3]
22. [4]
23. [5]
24. [6]
25. [7]
26. [8]
27. [9]
28. [10]
29. [11]
30. [12]
31. [13]
32. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004, Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, Cheryl Hill Lee, , , ,
33. #242 Oprah Winfrey
34. Oprah The Educator
35. Oprah's £20m school proves she's not all talk
36. Condi and Oprah aren't good role models for Black motherhood
37. Oprah Winfrey Debuts as First African-American On BusinessWeek's Annual Ranking of 'Americas Top Philanthropists'
38. Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2003 Donna L. Hoyert, PhD.; Hsiang-Ching Kung, PhD.; Betty L. Smith, B.S. Ed.
39. Income Stable, Poverty Up, Numbers of Americans With and Without Health Insurance Rise, Census Bureau Reports
40. Ethics and Human Rights Position Statements: Discrimination and Racism in Health Care
41. Risk Factors and Coronary Heart Disease
42. Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2007
43. African-American Inventors
44. African American Music: An Introduction, , Earl L., Stewart, , ,
45. Black People and Their Place in World History
46. Martin Luther King, Jr
47. Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity
48. The Black Population: 2000 United States Census Bureau
49. Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook
50. Estimating African American Admixture Proportions by Use of Population-Specific Alleles
51. Population structure of Y chromosome SNP haplogroups in the United States and forensic implications for constructing Y chromosome STR databases
52. S.O.Y. Keita. History in Africa, Vol. 20, 1993 (1993), pp. 129-154
53. CNN Sunday Night
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.
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.
★ Melodies by African American composers, including historical notes and biographical sketches
★ Should African Americans call themselves African Americans
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