African Americans facts for kids
An African American generally refers to a person who lives in the United States and speaks English, but whose ancestors were from Africa. It could also describe a first generation African immigrant who has citizenship in the United States. More rarely, it is used for people of African ancestry who live elsewhere in the Americas.
The term is usually associated with "black people." This is because of many African Americans' dark skin, due to having Sub-Saharan African ancestors. Many Africans were brought to the United States in the slave trade. Many of the U.S. population (especially in many urban or city areas) are African American. Many others live in rural areas in the Southern United States. Detroit has the highest percentage of black people in the nation, and many live in other big cities. Cities with the highest percent of African Americans are Jackson, Mississippi; New Orleans; Memphis; Miami Gardens; and Savannah, Georgia. New York City and Chicago have the largest population of African Americans. Other cities with a high African American population are Baltimore, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Baton Rouge, Washington, D.C., and Dallas. States with the highest percentage of African Americans are Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Alabama, Delaware, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. African Americans are the third-largest ethnic group in the United States after White Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans.
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Ethnicity
African American refers to different cultures that all have a connection to Africa. This term was created to describe an ethnic/cultural link to Africa for people who are American. It is similar to the case of Italian Americans, Irish Americans, or Polish Americans. The difference is that Italian Americans, Irish Americans, and Polish Americans know they are Americans of Italian, Irish, or Polish (not general European) descent.
The 'African' in African American recognizes the connection to several African cultures, not one in particular. The 'American' shows the nationality and culture of the United States. A person born in Nigeria is still Nigerian even if he or she comes to the United States and lives here for the rest of their life. If that person wants to say that they are an American citizen, they would simply say "I am an American citizen." His American-born children could correctly call themselves Nigerian American or African American.
Some Caribbeans such as Jamaicans do not identify as African American, even if they have African ancestry.
Black
In America, and from an American point of view, the term 'black' is often applied to other ethnic groups throughout the world who do not necessarily see themselves as black, such as Australian Aborigines, for example.
African American is a term that many black people chose to call themselves because they found the term "Negro" offensive.
In America, there are many immigrants of mixed race that includes African descent, like Cape Verdeans, Dominicans, Cubans, Brazilians, and Puerto Ricans. These groups do not think of themselves as Black or African American and do not want to be labeled as such.
Because there are so many differing mixed races in America, mixed-race Americans also resist pressure to identify themselves as black or white.
Genetic studies
Many African Americans have European ancestry and Native American along with African ancestry.
Recent surveys of African Americans using a genetic testing service have found varied ancestries. These studies found that on average, African Americans have 73.2–82.1% West African, 16.7%–24% European, and 0.8–1.2% Native American genetic ancestry. There is a large variation among individuals. Genetics websites themselves have reported similar ranges, with some finding 1 or 2 percent Native American ancestry and Ancestry.com reporting European ancestry among African Americans of 29%. 38% of African Americans have Irish ancestry.
History
Most of the first African Americans were brought to North America as part of the Atlantic slave trade. African slaves were brought to North America from 1619 to 1808. After the United States became independent, slavery became illegal in most Northern states. At the same time, slavery grew more important to the economy of the Southern states. Many African American slaves worked on plantations that grew cotton and tobacco. Plantation work was very difficult and slaves were often whipped and physically punished. It was illegal for slaves to learn how to read and write.
At the same time, there were many free African Americans in the North. Unlike slaves, they were allowed to start churches, write newspapers, and sometimes own property. Frederick Douglass was an important abolitionist (fighter against slavery). Harriet Tubman helped to create the Underground Railroad, which helped African Americans to sneak away from their masters and become free. During the American Civil War from 1861-1865, the South broke away from the United States to form the Confederate States of America, or Confederacy. The United States won the war, and in 1865, it freed all slaves (about 4 million) by the 13th amendment.
African Americans were not slaves anymore, but white southerners passed laws called Black Codes that took away their freedom. Some African Americans served in government, but after 1877, the white Southerners mostly kept them out of government. White people founded the Ku Klux Klan to scare African Americans and stop them from voting. Most southern African Americans became sharecroppers. Sharecropping was a system in which the farmers rented the land from the landowner and had to pay the landowner part of their crops. Jim Crow laws segregated white and black people. Black people had to go to different schools and usually live in different neighborhoods than white people. Many businesses were for white people only. The Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson said that black and white facilities could be separate but equal, but facilities for black people were usually worse. Lynching was often practiced against African Americans.
In the early 1900s, African-American culture grew with the Harlem Renaissance, an artistic and literary movement in New York City. The NAACP was founded to improve the lives of African Americans. Leaders had different ideas about what was best for African Americans. Booker T. Washington thought they should go to vocational schools to get better jobs. W. E. B. Du Bois thought university education was more important. Marcus Garvey believed that African Americans should move to Africa to have a country of their own. During the Great Migration, from the 1910s to the 1960s, African Americans moved from the South to cities in the North and West. Segregation also existed in the North. Sometimes redlining stopped people who lived in African-American neighborhoods from buying homes.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement called for equality between African Americans and white people. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act banned discrimination based on race and other characteristics.
Language and society
The Africans who were brought to America as slaves were from different nationalities and did not all speak the same language. They became a new blended ethnic group with a new language that was not their own: English. With their American-born children came the first generation of English-speaking African Americans. In the second half of the 20th century, reading-ability rates for black people increased.
Culture
African Americans have influenced various forms of music, including Hip hop, R&B, funk, rock and roll, soul, blues, and other modern American musical forms. Older black forms of music included blues, doo-wop, barbershop, ragtime, bluegrass, jazz, and gospel music. Michael Jackson, an African-American pop singer, released an album called Thriller in 1982 which is the best-selling album of all time. In the nineties, Beyonce Knowles became famous as the lead singer of the R&B girl band Destiny's Child. In the 2000s, she started releasing music on her own. African-American rappers Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West, 50 Cent, Flo Rida, and Drake are considered one of the best selling artists. Gangsta rap such as 50 Cent and G-Unit is popular African-American music.
Black culture has been the subject of documentaries. For example, the award-winning Black Is, Black Ain't explores black identity. Good Hair discusses the significance of having 'good hair' for black women in American culture.
There is a National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.
Protestant Christianity is the most practiced religion by African Americans.
Soul food is a cuisine eaten by African Americans in the South. Fried chicken, mac and cheese, cornbread, and candied yams is typical soul food.
Kwanzaa and Juneteenth are popular African-American holidays.
Popular African-American fashions are hip-hop such as durags, sagging jeans, and grillz (gold teeth covers). African American hairstyles include dreadlocks and cornrows.
Quick facts about African Americans
- African Americans are people who live in America and speak English but have ancestors from Africa.
- Since there are many African countries, an American who has ancestors from Nigeria, Africa, could call himself either African American or Nigerian American.
- Most of the time, African Americans are called "black people."
- Many Africans were brought to the southern United States in the Atlantic slave trade.
- There were many free African Americans in the North.
- Many immigrants in America of a mixed race do not call themselves "black" or "African Americans."
- Black people used to be segregated in schools, especially in the South.
- Other restrictions were put on African-American people in the South because of the color of their skin.
- Many African Americans have their own culture that is reflected in their music, dress, religion, food, and celebrations.
Related pages
- List of African-American women in STEM fields
- African American Vernacular English
- African American history
- Alexander Crummell
Images for kids
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Slaves processing tobacco in 17th-century Virginia, illustration from 1670
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The first slave auction at New Amsterdam in 1655, illustration from 1895 by Howard Pyle
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Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769
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Crispus Attucks, the first "martyr" of the American Revolution. He was of Native American and African-American descent.
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Frederick Douglass, ca 1850
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Slaves Waiting for Sale: Richmond, Virginia, 1853. Note the new clothes. The domestic slave trade broke up many families, and individuals lost their connection to families and clans.
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Harriet Tubman, around 1869
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Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after being arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus to a White person
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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963, shows civil rights leaders and union leaders
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Proportion of Black Americans in each county of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 United States Census
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U.S. Census map indicating U.S. counties with fewer than 25 Black or African-American inhabitants
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Graph showing the percentage of the African-American population living in the American South, 1790–2010. Note the major declines between 1910 and 1940 and 1940–1970, and the reverse trend post-1970. Nonetheless, the absolute majority of the African-American population has always lived in the American South.
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Former slave reading, 1870
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The US homeownership rate according to race
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This graph shows the real median US household income by race: 1967 to 2011, in 2011 dollars.
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Genetic clustering of 128 African Americans, by Zakharaia et al. (2009). Each vertical bar represents an individual. The color scheme of the bar plot matches that in the PCA plot.
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BET founder Robert L. Johnson with former U.S. President George W. Bush
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A traditional soul food dinner consisting of fried chicken with macaroni and cheese, collard greens, breaded fried okra and cornbread
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Mount Zion United Methodist Church is the oldest African-American congregation in Washington, D.C.
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Masjid Malcolm Shabazz in Harlem, New York City
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This parade float displayed the word "Afro-Americans" in 1911.
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Michelle Obama was the First Lady of the United States; she and her husband, President Barack Obama, are the first African Americans to hold these positions.
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Racially segregated Negro section of keypunch operators at the US Census Bureau
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See also
In Spanish: Afroestadounidense para niños
