African Americans

African Americans are an ethnic group in the United States who have ancestors from Africa, though most African Americans also have ancestors from other ethnic groups as well, especially European Americans. The term African American is often used interchangeably with Black people; however, Black people live in all parts of the world, while African Americans are people born in the United States or citizens through naturalization. Furthermore, some Black people living in the United States do not identify as African American, as their ancestors may have been immigrants from the Caribbean, Europe, or elsewhere in the world. People who identify as African American are often people whose ancestors were enslaved, though other Black people might also identify as African American because of race. Race itself is a social construct, as race is not an indicator of genetics. Therefore, race is defined by one’s physical appearance, especially one’s skin tone but also one’s hair and facial features. Yet, race is an important factor in society, as people are treated differently and, therefore, have different social outcomes because of their race. Throughout American history, African Americans and Black people have faced discrimination, stereotyping, and other forms of prejudice, though the nature of the discrimination has changed over time.

Background

The first Africans to come to the British colonies arrived in 1619. Roughly twenty enslaved Africans were transported by ship to the British colony of Virginia. These men were part of the burgeoning trans-Atlantic slave trade, which trafficked an estimated 10.7 million Africans to the Americas and the Caribbean. About 2 million more died on the trip from Africa to the New World. Approximately 388,000 of these Africans were enslaved in the British colonies and later, after its formation, in the United States. The slave trade became an integral part of the British colonies by the mid-1600s. The first Africans who were enslaved were most likely treated in a way similar to indentured servants; however, the institution of slavery for Africans and their descendants quickly changed. Although indentured servants, who worked for a set number of years to pay off their debts, were often treated harshly, historical documents indicate that from the beginning Africans were treated more harshly than European indentured servants. Additionally, the children of indentured servants were free, while the children of enslaved people were not.

Overview

The increasingly racialized system of American slavery became an official part of the colonies with the passage of slave laws in Massachusetts in 1641 and in Virginia in 1661. The laws differentiated African Americans from European Americans, officially removing any small amount of rights that African Americans had before that time. Therefore, the system of slavery both perpetuated and fed off racism. It perpetuated it by singling out African Americans as property, whereas European indentured servants were not considered property and were eventually freed. The system later fed off racism as Americans used their racist beliefs to justify the brutal, inhumane system.

Often, enslaved people were forced to do agricultural work on large plantations, though enslaved people in urban areas and in the north were more likely to work in houses. Regardless of where enslaved people were forced to work, they were subjected to harsh treatment. Punishments included whipping, beating, and branding. Enslaved people were forced to build their own shelters, and they were often not given enough food to sustain themselves. Families were broken apart, with even mothers and young children being separated without warning. Sometimes female slaves were raped by White enslavers; their resulting children were considered Black—because a person with any African ancestry was considered Black—and, therefore, these children were also forced to be enslaved. Occasionally, enslavers freed their children, but this did not always happen.

African Americans actively resisted their enslavement, even though they were controlled through brutal laws and social norms. Laws preventing enslaved persons from gathering in large groups or learning how to read and write were intended to prevent enslaved individuals from banding together to resist their enslavers. Despite the odds stacked against them, enslaved people did have the opportunity to organize small groups to carry out armed resistance, such as the revolts led by Gabriel Prosser in Virginia (1800), Denmark Vesey in South Carolina (1822), and Nat Turner in Virginia (1831). Enslaved people also fought back in other ways when they did not have the means or opportunity to physically resist. Enslaved people often took part in work slowdowns and production sabotage. Enslaved people also resisted by running away, even though the punishments for running away were inhumane and included whipping, branding, and even the severing of the Achilles tendon. The Underground Railroad—which was a network of Black and White Americans who sheltered and aided runaway slaves—helped some people escape to freedom. Harriet Tubman, who famously escaped enslavement herself, helped dozens of people escape via the Underground Railroad. Speakers such as Frederick Douglass, another enslaved person who fled to freedom, helped the cause by highlighting the brutal conditions of slavery and actively participating in the Abolitionist movement.

Although the institution of plantation slavery had become the economic backbone of the South by the 1800s, the North still benefited economically from slave labor. Despite the economic benefits they enjoyed, some White Americans became convinced that slavery needed to end. The division over slavery in the United States led to a fissure in the country. When the country elected President Abraham Lincoln in 1860, southern states decided that it was time to leave the Union because they believed he would try to end slavery. This battle over slavery led to the Civil War (1861–65), even though ending slavery was not the primary goal of the Union when the war began. Lincoln and his military wanted to bring the South back into the Union. Over the course of the war, however, ending slavery became an animating issue for some Northerners.

After the end of the Civil War, the US government officially ended all slavery and gave formerly enslaved African Americans citizenship through the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Nevertheless, these changes did not guarantee African Americans equal treatment. Reconstruction, which was the US government’s process for reuniting the country and freeing enslaved people, ended in 1877. Southern states quickly began passing racist Jim Crow laws as soon as Reconstruction ended, and African Americans from the South who had started making social and economic progress—such as being elected to the US Senate—were again the targets of racist subjugation. African Americans in the South were regularly tortured and lynched by White mobs, and endured further violence and intimidation at the hands of White supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). White Southerners also developed new strategies, such as unaffordable poll taxes, to prevent African Americans from owning land and voting.

Because of the economic and social conditions in the South, many African Americans chose to move to the North, Midwest, and West in the decades after the Civil War. During the Great Migration (1916–70), more than one million African Americans left the South and moved elsewhere, usually to prosperous urban areas such as Chicago. Although African Americans were fleeing racism in the South, they did not escape racism in their new homes. Racist practices such as redlining ensured that many African Americans were unable to live in affluent communities. Furthermore, African Americans could not escape racist violence, such as the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. During the massacre, a White mob attacked the affluent Greenwood District, which was home to wealthy and middle-class Black Americans. The mob looted and robbed the residents, killed up to three hundred residents, injured eight hundred people, and burned down thirty-five city blocks. Such racist violence, including lynchings, were meant to uphold White supremacy and prevent Black Americans from gaining their full rights and freedoms.

Even though African Americans continued to face racism and violence throughout the country, the Great Migration helped stimulate new works of artistry and creativity among African Americans. The resulting Harlem Renaissance was an African American artistic movement made up of painters, writers, musicians, and other artists. African Americans also started organizing more and creating coalitions to protect themselves against racism. For example, the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909, and the Congress for Racial Equity was created in 1942. World War II (1939–45) also brought about many changes for African Americans. Many were drafted to fight in the war, and roughly 167,000 African Americans served in the effort. When these African Americans returned home after their time overseas, they were often met with brutal treatment, despite their service, and this stark injustice only fueled the desire for racial equality in the African American community.

Two events helped precipitate the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 60s. The first was the US Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), in which the Supreme Court found that segregated institutions were inherently unequal. The next year, a Black boy named Emmett Till was tortured and brutally murdered by White men in Mississippi. These events simultaneously gave the African American community a renewed belief in their ability to create change and a renewed understanding of the great threat that racism posed to their existence. In 1955 Rosa Parks, who had worked for the NAACP and understood the need for civil disobedience as a form of protest, refused to move from her seat on a bus and was arrested. Martin Luther King Jr., a young African American pastor, organized a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest her arrest. The bus boycott helped end segregation on buses. Other events of the civil rights movement included Black students sitting at segregated lunch counters, marches and rallies, voter registration efforts, and more.

Most White Americans did not approve of the civil rights movement or the Black Americans who took part in it, and African Americans were mocked, beaten, and even killed because of this work. This resistance from White America helped propel a different type of resistance in the Black community. Some African American leaders, such as Malcolm X, believed that African Americans should use any means necessary, including violence, to gain their full rights and freedoms. Other groups, such as the Black Panther Party, focused on improving the African American community and protecting its members from outside forces, such as the police. The civil rights movement had accomplished some of its important legislative goals, but the cost was very high. Many people died, including important civil rights leaders King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Fred Hampton—who was a Black Panther Party member murdered by Chicago police.

The focus of the civil rights movement shifted away from changing laws toward challenging other issues in society, including ending discrimination in housing, education, and employment. Black scholars and thinkers wrote important books and developed essential theories about social changes that they believed could help increase racial equality. Continued social inequality fueled frustration in African American communities, which led to violence and riots breaking out in some communities in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Violence in these communities also increased in part because of the introduction of addictive drugs such as crack cocaine. African Americans who became addicted were stereotyped and often dismissed by the medical profession, which did not provide adequate treatment options. Furthermore, African Americans continued to face discriminatory hiring practices, housing rules, and education systems.

In the 1980s and 1990s, affirmative action programs were introduced to workplaces and educational systems. This helped some African Americans enter into the middle class. Nevertheless, the African American community continued to face higher-than-average unemployment rates and poor education opportunities. Even as discrimination continued, the African American community in the United States continued to play an outsized role in developing culture and entertainment, with hip hop, R&B, and rap becoming among the most popular musical genres in the country and Black athletes being among the most famous. In the early 2000s, the United States had its first African American secretary of state when President George W. Bush chose Colin Powell for the position. In 2008, the country also elected its first African American president, Barack Obama.

The African American community continued to face discriminatory policing practices, and Black men in particular were the most likely to be incarcerated. Ending mass incarceration and police violence became the new focus of many people interested in civil rights in the early twenty-first century. In 2013, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, was shot and killed, and his killer was acquitted. Martin’s death sparked new rounds of protests and helped create the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which is a coalition of groups devoted to ending systematic racism. The BLM movement gained significant momentum following other high-profile cases of police brutality, including the deaths of Black men Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (2014); Eric Garner in New York City (2014); and George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2020). Demonstrations became much larger and spread to other countries. The protests were successful in bringing about reforms to police organizations in some communities.

Bibliography

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