Global InformationAfrican Americans information
 Proportion of Black Americans in each county as of the 2020 U.S. census | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 46,936,733 (2020)[1] 14.2% of the total U.S. population (2020)[1] 41,104,200 (2020) (one race)[1] 12.4% of the total U.S. population (2020)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Across the United States, especially in the South and urban areas | |
| Languages | |
| English (American English dialects, African-American English) Gullah Creole English | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Protestant (71%) including Historically Black Protestant (53%), Evangelical Protestant (14%), and Mainline Protestant (4%); significant[note 1] others include Catholic (5%), Jehovah's Witnesses (2%), Muslim (2%), and unaffiliated (18%).[2] |
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African Americans, also known as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa.[3][4] African Americans constitute the third largest racial or ethnic group in the U.S. after White Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans.[5] The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States.[6][7]
Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States.[8][9] While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African American, the majority of first-generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin.[10] Most African Americans are of West African and coastal Central African ancestry, with varying amounts of Western European and Native American ancestry.[11]
African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans from West Africa and coastal Central Africa being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. After arriving in the Americas, they were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom through manumission or escape and founded independent communities before and during the American Revolution. After the United States was founded in 1783, most Black people continued to be enslaved, being most concentrated in the American South, with four million enslaved only liberated during and at the end of the Civil War in 1865.[12] During Reconstruction, they gained citizenship and adult-males the right to vote; due to the widespread policy and ideology of White supremacy, they were largely treated as second-class citizens and found themselves soon disenfranchised in the South. These circumstances changed due to participation in the military conflicts of the United States, substantial migration out of the South, the elimination of legal racial segregation, and the civil rights movement which sought political and social freedom. However, racism against African Americans remains a problem into the 21st century. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first, and so far only African American to be elected president of the United States.[13]
African-American culture has had a significant influence on worldwide culture, making numerous contributions to visual arts, literature, the English language, philosophy, politics, cuisine, sports, and music. The African-American contributions to popular music is so profound that most American music, including jazz, gospel, blues, rock and roll, funk, disco, hip hop, R&B and soul, has its origins either partially or entirely in the African-American community.[14][15]
- ^ a b c d "Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census". U.S. Census Bureau. August 12, 2021. Archived from the original on October 7, 2021. Retrieved September 18, 2021.
- ^ "Religious tradition by race/ethnicity (2014)". The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
- ^ "The Black Population: 2010" (PDF), Census Bureau, September 2011. "Black or African Americans" refers to a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The Black racial category includes people who marked the "Black, African Am., or Negro" checkbox. It also includes respondents who reported entries such as African American; Sub-Saharan African entries, such as Kenyan and Nigerian; and Afro-Caribbean entries, such as Haitian and Jamaican."
- ^ African Americans Law & Legal Definition Archived August 17, 2018, at the Wayback Machine: "African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry."
- ^ "Measuring Racial and Ethnic Diversity for the 2020 Census". The United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on April 30, 2023. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
- ^ Martin, Carol Lynn; Fabes, Richard (2008). Discovering Child Development. Cengage Learning. p. 19. ISBN 978-1111808112. Archived from the original on October 19, 2018. Retrieved October 25, 2014.
most (but not all) Americans of African descent are grouped racially as Black; however, the term African American refers to an ethnic group, most often to people whose ancestors experienced slavery in the United States (Soberon, 1996). Thus, not all Blacks in the United States are African-American (for example, some are from Haiti and others are from the Caribbean).
- ^ Locke, Don C.; Bailey, Deryl F. (2013). Increasing Multicultural Understanding. SAGE Publications. p. 106. ISBN 978-1483314211. Archived from the original on August 18, 2018. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
African American refers to descendants of enslaved Black people who are from the United States. The reason we use an entire continent (Africa) instead of a country (e.g., Irish American) is because slave masters purposefully obliterated tribal ancestry, language, and family units in order to destroy the spirit of the people they enslaved, thereby making it impossible for their descendants to trace their history prior to being born into slavery.
- ^ Gomez, Michael A: Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South, p. 29. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1998.
- ^ Rucker, Walter C. (2006). The River Flows On: Black resistance, culture, and identity formation in early America. LSU Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-8071-3109-1.
- ^ Forson, Tracy Scott (February 21, 2018). "Who is an 'African American'? Definition evolves as USA does". USA Today. Archived from the original on May 16, 2023. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
- ^ Gates, Henry Louis Jr (2009). In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past. New York: Crown Publishing. pp. 20–21.
- ^ Harris, Paul (October 8, 2015). "How the end of slavery led to starvation and death for millions of black Americans". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 16, 2023.
- ^ MacAskill, Ewen; Goldenberg, Suzanne; Schor, Elana (November 5, 2008). "Barack Obama to be America's first black president". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on March 1, 2016. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
- ^ Eaglin, Maya (February 21, 2021). "The soundtrack of history: How Black music has shaped American culture through time". NBC News. Archived from the original on April 19, 2022. Retrieved April 14, 2022.
- ^ Osei, Sarah (November 4, 2020). "How Black People Created All Your Favorite Music". Highsnobiety. Retrieved April 14, 2022.
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