Americans
African Americans are people in the
United States who have ancestors from
Africa. Many African Americans have
non-African ancestors as well. African
Americans are also known as black
Americans.
Slavery
Most African Americans have ancestors
who were slaves. Slaves were people
taken from their African homelands and
shipped to the Americas. There, white
people forced them to work without pay
and in harsh conditions. English settlers
brought the first African slaves to the
colony of Virginia in the early 1600s. By
1790 black people made up nearly one
fifth of the population of the United
States. Most slaves lived and worked on
plantations, or large farms, in the South.
Many people called abolitionists worked
to end slavery. These included black
people as well as white people. Harriet
Tubman, a black abolitionist, organized
the Underground Railroad, which was a
way for slaves to escape to the North.
The American CivilWar
The American CivilWar broke out in
1861. This was a war between the
Northern and Southern states, partly
over the issue of slavery. In 1863 President
Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation. This document
freed the slaves in the Southern states.
The North won the CivilWar in 1865.
That year the 13th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution ended slavery
throughout the United States. In 1868
the 14th Amendment gave African
Americans U.S. citizenship. In 1870 the
15th Amendment guaranteed them the
right to vote.
Reconstruction
The period following the war was
known as Reconstruction. African
Americans were finally free, but most of
them lived in terrible poverty. In the
South many worked as sharecroppers.
This meant that they farmed a piece of
land owned by someone else. Their pay
was a share of the crops they produced.
In addition, African Americans continued
to suffer from discrimination (unfair
treatment) and violence. Schools and
other public places were often segregated.
This meant that blacks and whites
could not mix in those places. Violent
groups like the Ku Klux Klan kept most
blacks from voting in the South. These
groups also hurt or killed many blacks.
First Civil Rights Efforts
In the late 1800s a former slave named
Booker T.Washington became a powerful
voice for African Americans. He
believed in training African Americans
to do certain jobs so that they could find
work.
Other African American leaders disagreed
withWashington. W.E.B. Du
Bois thought that the government
should guarantee to blacks the same
rights that whites had. These
February is
Black History
Month in the
United States.
In that month
schools and
other organizations
help
everyone learn
about the African
American
experience.
BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA African Americans 43
rightssuch as the right to vote or the
right to go to a public schoolare called
civil rights. Du Bois and others formed
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) to help African Americans to
gain full civil rights.
Great Migration
DuringWorldWar I (191418) large
numbers of African Americans began to
leave the South. They moved to cities in
the North andWest. There they hoped
to find jobs and to escape discrimination.
However, many were forced to live
in poor, segregated areas.
This movement from the South, called
the Great Migration, continued through
the 1960s. By 1970 about 6 million
African Americans had left the South.
Civil Rights Movement
By the 1950s the NAACP had begun to
use the court system to fight for civil
rights for African Americans. One major
success came in 1954. In that year the
U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation
in public schools.
These efforts soon turned into an organized
fight for equal rights. This was
called the civil rights movement. A Baptist
minister named Martin Luther King,
Jr., became the leader of the movement.
In 1963 he led a major protest called the
March onWashington.
In 1964 the U.S. Congress passed the
Civil Rights Act. This law banned discrimination
based on race in schools,
jobs, and many other areas.
Black Power Movement
Despite these successes, some African
Americans grew impatient with the
slow pace of change. They began a
African Americans at the 1968
Olympics show their support of
the black power movement with
a raised-fist salute.
In May 1954 the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that segregation in
schools was illegal. Lawyers
George Hayes (left), Thurgood
Marshall (center), and James M.
Nabrit (right) join hands outside
the U.S. Supreme Court to celebrate
the decision.
44 African Americans BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA
more extreme movement called the
black power movement. Malcolm X
and a group called the Black Panthers
were among the movements leaders.
They believed that blacks should use
violence, if necessary, to get power and
justice.
During the 1960s violent riots did break
out in black neighborhoods in many
cities. The African Americans who
rioted were angry about violent treatment
by police, a lack of jobs, and poor
housing.
Political Progress
After the 1960s the civil rights movement
broke into many separate groups.
Still, African American leaders continued
their work to end discrimination.
In addition, many African Americans
gained positions of power. In 1967
Thurgood Marshall became the first
African American justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court. In 2001 Colin Powell
became the first black U.S. secretary of
state, and in 2008 Barack Obama
became the first African American to be
elected president of the United States.
African Americans Today
In 2000 there were about 36 million
Americans with African roots. They
made up about 13 percent of the total
U.S. population. One quarter of African
Americans lived in poverty, and discrimination
against African Americans
remains a problem today. Nevertheless,
African Americans have made great
gains since the end of slavery more than
140 years ago.
..More to explore
Civil Rights Movement King, Martin
Luther, Jr. Malcolm X Marshall,
Thurgood National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
Slavery Tubman, Harriet
Washington, Booker T.
African National
Congress
A political party in South Africa, the
African National Congress (ANC) supported
the rights of black and mixedrace
people through the apartheid era.
Nelson Mandela, the first black president
of South Africa, belonged to the
ANC.
In the early 1900s whites ruled South
Africa. Blacks made up most of the
Author Toni Morrison writes about the experiences
of African Americans. She won the
Nobel prize for literature in 1993.
BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA African National Congress 45
countrys population but did not have
equal rights. In 1912 black Africans who
wanted equality formed the party that
became the ANC.
In 1950 the South African government
introduced apartheid. This system kept
whites and nonwhites apart and denied
nonwhites almost all their legal rights.
The ANC protested. In 1960 the party