African Americans
The first African slaves in what is now the United States arrived in the early 16th century. Africans were among Juan Ponce de León's 1513 voyage that landed in what would become Spanish Florida. Enslaved Africans also arrived around the same time to Spanish Puerto Rico. They came via Santo Domingo in the Caribbean to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526. This ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership during which the slaves revolted and fled to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterward due to an epidemic and the colony was abandoned.
The first recorded Africans in English America were twenty and odd negroes who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia via Cape Comfort in August 1619 as indentured servants. As many Virginian settlers began to die from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. An indentured servant worked for several years without wages. Unlike slaves, they were freed after their term of service expired or if their freedom was purchased. Their children did not inherit their status, and on release they received freedom dues including corn, double apparel, tools necessary, and a small cash payment. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom. They raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or European settlers.
By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown. Some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of lifetime slavery when they sentenced John Punch, a Negro, to lifetime servitude under his master Hugh Gwyn for running away. The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 18th century. Massachusetts was the first English colony to legally recognize slavery in 1641. In 1662, Virginia passed a law that children of enslaved women would take the status of the mother rather than that of the father.
During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The proclamation declared that all slaves in Confederate-held territory were free. Advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation, with Texas being the last state to be emancipated in 1865. While the Naturalization Act of 1790 limited US citizenship to Whites only, the 14th Amendment gave Black people citizenship in 1868. The 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote in 1870.
Black soldiers played a crucial role during the war. Around 15,000 Black Loyalists left with the British after the Revolutionary War, most ending up as free Black people in England or its colonies like the Black Nova Scotians and Sierra Leone Creole people. Governor Bernardo de Gálvez organized Spanish free Black men into two militia companies to defend New Orleans during the American Revolution. They fought in the 1779 battle where Spain captured Baton Rouge from the British. By 1860, the number of enslaved Black people in the US had grown to between 3.5 and 4.4 million largely as a result of the Atlantic slave trade. Four million enslaved people were liberated after the Northern victory over the South in the Civil War of 1861 to 1865.
African Americans quickly set up congregations for themselves, schools and community civic associations to have space away from White control or oversight. While the post-war Reconstruction era was initially a time of progress for African Americans, that period ended in 1876. By the late 1890s, Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Segregation was now imposed using signs used to show Blacks where they could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat.
For those places that were racially mixed, non-Whites had to wait until all White customers were dealt with. Most African Americans obeyed the Jim Crow laws to avoid racially motivated violence. To maintain self-esteem and dignity, African Americans such as Anthony Overton and Mary McLeod Bethune continued to build their own schools, churches, banks, social clubs and other businesses. In the last decade of the 19th century, racially discriminatory laws and racial violence aimed at African Americans began to mushroom in the United States. These 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.
The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South sparked the Great Migration during the first half of the 20th century which led to a growing African American community in Northern and Western United States. From 1916 through the 1960s, more than 6 million Black people moved north looking for better job opportunities and living conditions. The Red Summer of 1919 was marked by hundreds of deaths and higher casualties across the US as a result of race riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities including the Chicago race riot of 1919 and the Omaha race riot of 1919.
Despite discrimination, drawing cards for leaving the hopelessness in the South were the growth of African American institutions and communities in Northern cities. Institutions included Black oriented organizations like the Urban League and NAACP, churches, businesses and newspapers. Successes developed in African American intellectual culture, music and popular culture such as the Harlem Renaissance and Chicago Black Renaissance. The Cotton Club in Harlem was a Whites-only establishment with Blacks like Duke Ellington allowed to perform but to a White audience. Black Americans also found new ground for political power in Northern cities without the enforced disabilities of Jim Crow.
A 1955 lynching that sparked public outrage about injustice was that of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago. Spending the summer with relatives in Money, Mississippi, Till was killed for allegedly having wolf-whistled at a White woman. Till had been badly beaten, one of his eyes was gouged out, and he was shot in the head. The visceral response to his mother's decision to have an open-casket funeral mobilized the Black community throughout the US. One hundred days after Emmett Till's murder, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Alabama.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on the 28th of August 1963 showing civil rights leaders and union leaders. This event put pressure on presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson put his support behind passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment and labor unions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 expanded federal authority over states to ensure Black political participation through protection of voter registration and elections. On the 4th of November 2008, Democratic Senator Barack Obama defeated Republican Senator John McCain to become the first African American to be elected president.
In 1790 when the first US census was taken, Africans including slaves and free people numbered about 760,000 which was about 19.3% of the population. In 1860 at the start of the Civil War, the African American population had increased to 4.4 million but the percentage rate dropped to 14% of the overall population of the country. By 1900, the Black population had doubled and reached 8.8 million. In 1910, about 90% of African Americans lived in the South.
As of the 1st of July 2024, the Black population was estimated at 42,951,595 representing approximately 12.63% of the total U.S. population. Texas has the largest African American population by state followed by Florida with 3.8 million and Georgia with 3.6 million. Mississippi is the state with the highest African American share of the population at 39%. New York City metropolitan area still has the largest African American metropolitan population in the United States and the only one to have over 3 million African Americans. Claiborne County, Mississippi is the Blackest county in the U.S. at 87% Black in 2020.
During slavery, anti-literacy laws were enacted in the US that prohibited education for Black people. Slave owners saw literacy as a threat to the institution of slavery. When slavery was finally abolished in 1865, public educational systems were expanding across the country. By 1870, around seventy-four institutions in the south provided a form of advanced education for African American students. By 1900, over a hundred programs at these schools provided training for Black professionals including teachers.
In 1863, two years prior to emancipation, Black people owned 0.5 percent of the national wealth while in 2019 it is just over 1.5 percent. In the first quarter of 2021, 45.1% of African Americans owned their homes compared to 65.3% of all Americans. The average White high school drop-out still has a slightly better chance of owning a home than the average African American college graduate usually due to unfavorable debt-to-income ratios or credit scores among most African American college graduates. From 2000 to 2022, the median home price in the US grew 160% outpacing average annual household income growth which only grew about 30%. In 1999, the median income of African American families was $33,255 compared to $53,356 of European Americans.
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Common questions
When did the first African slaves arrive in what is now the United States?
The first African slaves arrived in the early 16th century, specifically during Juan Ponce de León's 1513 voyage to Spanish Florida. Enslaved Africans also arrived around that same time to Spanish Puerto Rico and the San Miguel de Gualdape colony founded by Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526.
What year were the first recorded Africans brought to English America as indentured servants?
Twenty and odd negroes arrived in Jamestown, Virginia via Cape Comfort in August 1619 as indentured servants. These individuals worked for several years without wages but could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom after their term expired.
Which state was the last to be emancipated following the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863?
Texas was the last state to be emancipated in 1865 when advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation. The Civil War of 1861 to 1865 resulted in the liberation of four million enslaved people after the Northern victory over the South.
When did Jim Crow laws begin to enforce racial segregation across Southern states?
Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement by the late 1890s. This period included racially discriminatory laws and violence that mushroomed during the last decade of the 19th century, culminating in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision in 1896.
How many Black people moved north from 1916 through the 1960s during the Great Migration?
More than 6 million Black people moved north looking for better job opportunities and living conditions between 1916 and the 1960s. This migration created growing African American communities in Northern and Western United States cities despite events like the Red Summer of 1919.
What is the estimated Black population in the United States as of the 1st of July 2024?
As of the 1st of July 2024, the Black population was estimated at 42,951,595 representing approximately 12.63% of the total U.S. population. Texas has the largest African American population by state followed by Florida with 3.8 million and Georgia with 3.6 million.