African Americans in Tennessee facts for kids

African Americans are a large group of people living in Tennessee. In 2010, they made up about 17% of the state's population. African Americans arrived in Tennessee even before it became a state. Some lived as enslaved people, while others were free but had limited rights. This was true until the Civil War.

Cities like Memphis and Nashville have been very important for African-American culture and the Civil Rights Movement. Most African Americans in Tennessee live in the western part of the state. This area used to have many large cotton farms where enslaved people worked. After slavery ended, many freed people stayed there. Historically, fewer Black people lived in Middle and East Tennessee due to different types of farming.

African Americans in Tennessee: By the Numbers

In the 2010 Census, over 1 million people in Tennessee were identified as African American. This was out of a total of about 6.3 million residents. In 19 of Tennessee's 95 counties, African Americans made up more than 10% of the population. Most of these counties are in West Tennessee. This is where large farms, called plantations, were common.

The city of Memphis is now home to over 400,000 African Americans. This makes it one of the largest centers for this group. At least eight other towns in Tennessee also have more African American residents than any other group. These towns include Bolivar, Brownsville, Gallaway, Gates, Henning, Mason, Stanton, and Whiteville.

How the Population Changed Over Time

From 1800 to 1850, Davidson County (where Nashville is) had the most African Americans in Tennessee. This was because it was settled earlier. Many plantation owners in Middle Tennessee held enslaved people. Since 1860, Shelby County (where Memphis is) has had the largest African American population.

A Look at African American History in Tennessee

Most African Americans in Tennessee were enslaved from the colonial period until 1865, when slavery ended. Even though some people in Tennessee worked to end slavery early on, the state government supported slavery in its 1834 constitution. Laws were even passed to make newly freed Black people leave the state. They also encouraged white people to move in. However, a small number of free Black people stayed, even facing danger.

After slavery ended in 1865, Black Tennesseans played a big role in politics during a time called Reconstruction. They joined the Republican Party. Many were elected to the state legislature, which had both Black and white members during these years.

Early Arrivals in Tennessee

The first African Americans came to Tennessee mainly from Virginia and North Carolina. Their families had been brought to North America through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade from West Africa. Some early arrivals were enslaved by Cherokee Indians or brought by European traders. Wealthy white families also brought enslaved African Americans with them to the Powell Valley in 1769.

Life for enslaved African Americans in early Tennessee was often lonely. Most slaveholders owned only one or two enslaved people. Enslaved people tried to find others at taverns, churches, workplaces, and in their owners' kitchens.

The government of Tennessee quickly passed laws to limit the lives of enslaved people. They could not own property or guns (unless they were hunters for their owners). They also could not sell goods.

Tennessee's Early Years as a State

In 1790, there were 361 free people of color in Tennessee and 3,417 enslaved people. Tennessee's first constitution in 1796 did not stop free Black people from voting. However, it is not clear if they actually voted.

After the American Revolution, many people in Tennessee supported ending slavery. In 1826, a law was passed that made it illegal to bring enslaved people into the state just to sell them. Free Black people had to carry papers to prove they were free. But after a rebellion in Virginia in 1831, the state made a new rule. It said that freed enslaved people had to leave Tennessee right away. It also stopped free Black people from moving into the state. This was because plantation owners worried about the influence of free Black people on those who were enslaved.

In 1834, Tennessee held a meeting to change its constitution. A plan to slowly end slavery over 20 years was rejected. The new constitution officially stopped Black people, whether free or enslaved, from voting. It also said that the government could not free enslaved people without the owners' permission. Only "free white men" were allowed to carry guns.

The Civil War and Reconstruction Era

Tennessee was the last state to join the Confederacy in 1861. Union forces quickly targeted Nashville because it was important for rivers and railroads. Nashville fell to Union troops in February 1862. Union forces also captured Memphis, Tennessee from the Confederacy in the Battle of Memphis in June 1862.

While under Union control, both cities saw a large increase in freed enslaved people and other refugees. In 1860, about 3,000 African Americans lived in Memphis. By the end of the war, around 20,000 had gathered in the area.

In 1863, the United States Colored Troops were formed. These African American soldiers in the Union Army showed a new kind of equality. They carried guns and were respected by white officers. Many white Southerners in Memphis and Nashville did not like these changes.

Freedmen's schoolhouse burned during the Memphis riots of 1866.

After the war, tensions grew in Memphis between white leaders and African American soldiers. Black military police resisted efforts by white police to close dance halls and enforce old rules about how Black people should act.

After the last Black soldiers at Fort Pickering were discharged in April 1866, problems started. Armed Black veterans faced police who tried to arrest one of them. Shots were fired, and a police officer was killed. The veterans went back to Fort Pickering, where Union officials disarmed them. Then, a group of white people, including police, attacked Black neighborhoods in Memphis for two days. White Union soldiers did not step in until the second day. These Memphis riots of 1866 led to the deaths of 46 Black people and 2 white people. Over 100 Black people were beaten and robbed. Also, 91 homes, 4 churches, and 12 schools (all belonging to Black people) were burned.

Life After Reconstruction and Jim Crow Laws

No hospital in Tennessee served African Americans until the Millie E. Hale Hospital opened in Nashville in 1916. It was started by Dr. John Henry Hale and his wife, Millie E. Hale.

The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee

In 1956, Clinton High School was the first public school in Tennessee to be desegregated by a court order. On August 26, 1956, twelve Black students, known as the "Clinton 12," walked from the Green McAdoo School to the high school. Later, white supremacists caused violence, and the National Guard had to be sent in. On October 5, 1958, Clinton High School was bombed, but no one was hurt.

Activists in Nashville and Memphis were very important in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1957, Nashville schools began to desegregate. Some white people protested, and a bomb exploded at Hattie Cotton Elementary School. No one was killed, and the desegregation plan continued peacefully after that.

On February 13, 1960, hundreds of college students in Nashville started sit-in protests. They wanted to desegregate lunch counters in the city. Even though they faced violence and arrests, the students succeeded. Local businesses eventually ended racial segregation. Many of these activists, like James Bevel, Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, and John Lewis, later helped start the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This became a very important group in the Civil Rights Movement. Nashville also became a key stop for the Freedom Riders in 1961. These riders traveled by bus into the South to challenge segregation laws.

In 1968, a strike by sanitation workers in Memphis was connected to the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Memphis to support the striking workers. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel. This happened the day after he gave his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.

African Americans in Tennessee Politics

When Tennessee became a state, most African Americans were enslaved and had no political rights. Some free Black people could vote, but a new law in 1834 took away this right. After the Civil War, the 14th and 15th amendments gave African American men the right to vote in 1866. By 1867, about 40,000 African Americans had registered to vote, mostly joining the Republican Party.

From 1873 to 1888, thirteen African Americans were elected as Republicans to the Tennessee House of Representatives. Most of these were after the Reconstruction era. However, laws were later passed to make it harder for Black candidates to be elected. No African American was elected to the Tennessee legislature from 1888 until 1962. Archie Walter Willis Jr. became the first Black lawmaker in Tennessee in over 70 years in 1964, after the federal Civil Rights Act was passed.

Today, in the early 21st century, African Americans make up 13% of the state legislature. They are all Democrats, as the Democratic Party supported the Civil Rights Movement. No African American has been elected governor or lieutenant governor of Tennessee.

In the early 1900s, many cities used a "city commissioner" form of government. This meant that all city leaders were elected by everyone in the city. In cities where most people were white, this often meant that minority groups could not elect their chosen leaders. This happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1987, twelve Black residents sued the city. The court ruled in their favor. In 1989, Chattanooga changed its government. Now, members of the city council are elected from smaller areas, called districts. Three of these districts had mostly African American residents. In 2017, four African Americans were elected to the Chattanooga City Council.

Willie Wilbert Herenton was the first African American elected as Mayor of Memphis, Tennessee. He served five terms from 1991 to 2009. His successors, Myron Lowery and A C Wharton, Jr., were also African American. Wharton had also been the first African American mayor of Shelby County.

Education for African Americans in Tennessee

As of 2012, African Americans made up a larger part of the public school system than of the total population. In that year, over 230,000 African American students attended public schools from pre-Kindergarten to 12th grade. This was about 23.6% of all students.

Sixty years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, schools in Tennessee are still largely separated by race. This is due to how neighborhoods have changed and how people have moved. In the 2011-12 school year, almost half of African American students in Tennessee attended schools where more than 90% of students were minorities.

Racial integration in higher education (colleges) was not allowed by the state constitution until later. In 1937 and 1939, the University of Tennessee did not allow seven African Americans to attend. It admitted its first African American student, Gene Gray, in 1952 after a court ruling. This ruling ended the ban for graduate students. After Brown v. Board of Education and the Nashville sit-ins, the University of Tennessee ended all racial discrimination in admissions in 1960.

In 2014-15, about 1,800 of the university's 27,410 students were African American. Memphis State University was integrated in 1959 when eight African American students were admitted. Today, Black students make up more than one-third of the students there. They are fully involved in all campus activities.

Tennessee is home to seven historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). These schools were created to provide education for African Americans. Two of the earliest were LeMoyne Normal and Commercial School (now LeMoyne-Owen College) and Fisk Free Colored School (now Fisk University). The Agricultural and Industrial State Normal School, the only public HBCU in the state, started in 1912. It is now known as Tennessee State University. Other HBCUs in Tennessee include Knoxville College, Meharry Medical College, Lane College, and American Baptist College.

Images for kids

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  Freedmen's schoolhouse burned during the Memphis riots of 1866.