African Americans

A

Language

Distinctive patterns of language use among African Americans arose as creative responses to the hardships imposed on the African American community. Slave-owners often intentionally mixed people who spoke many different African languages to discourage communication in any language other than English on their plantations. Moreover, many whites were unwilling to allow blacks to learn proper English. One response to these conditions was the development of pidgins, simplified mixtures of two or more languages that speakers of different languages could use to communicate with each other. Some of these pidgins eventually became fully developed Creole languages spoken by certain groups as a native language. Significant numbers of people still speak some of these Creole languages, notably Gullah on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also called black English or Ebonics, is a dialect of English spoken by many African Americans that shares some features with Creole languages.

B

Agriculture and Food

The cultivation and use of many agricultural products, such as yams, peanuts, rice, okra, grits, indigo dyes, and cotton, can be traced to African and African American influences. African American foods reflect creative responses to racial and economic oppression. Under slavery, African Americans were not allowed to eat better cuts of meat, and after emancipation many were often too poor to afford them. “Soul food,” a cuisine commonly associated with African Americans in the South, makes creative use of inexpensive products. Pig intestines are boiled and fried to make “chitterlings.” Ham hocks and necks provide seasoning to soups, beans, and boiled greens. Other common foods, such as fried chicken and “hoppin’ John” (black-eyed peas and rice), are prepared simply.

C

Religion

The vast majority of African Americans practice some form of Protestantism. Protestantism’s relatively loose hierarchical structure, particularly in the Baptist and Methodist denominations, has allowed African Americans to create and maintain separate churches. Separate churches enabled blacks to take up positions of leadership denied to them in mainstream America. In addition to their religious role, African American churches traditionally provide political leadership and serve social welfare functions. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first nationwide black church in the United States, was founded by Protestant minister Richard Allen in Philadelphia in 1816. The largest African American religious denomination is the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., founded in 1895.

A significant number of African Americans are Black Muslims. The most prominent Black Muslim group is the Nation of Islam, a religious organization founded by W. D. Fard and Elijah Poole in 1935. Poole, who changed his name to Elijah Muhammad, soon emerged as the leader of the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad established temples in Detroit, Chicago, and other northern cities. Today, Louis Farrakhan leads the Nation of Islam. A small number of African American Muslims worship independently of the Nation of Islam, as part of the mainstream Islamic tradition.

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D

Holidays

In 1926 African American scholar Carter Godwin Woodson organized the first Negro History week, to focus attention on previously neglected aspects of the black experience in the United States. Woodson chose February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, as well as the anniversary of the founding of the NAACP. Renamed Black History Week in 1972, the observance was extended to become Black History Month in 1976. During February, lectures, exhibitions, banquets, cultural events, and television and radio programming celebrate the achievements of African Americans. Since 1978 the U.S. Postal Service has participated in Black History Month by issuing commemorative stamps honoring notable African Americans.

In 1983 the U.S. Congress established a national holiday in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The holiday is observed annually on the third Monday in January, a day that falls on or near King’s birthday of January 15. Like Black History Month, Martin Luther King Jr. Day emphasizes educational observances, such as lectures and exhibits about King’s life and philosophy.

African American scholar Maulana Karenga invented the festival of Kwanzaa in 1966 as an alternative to the increasing commercialization of Christmas. Derived from the harvest rituals of Africans, Kwanzaa is observed each year from December 26 through January 1. Participants in Kwanzaa celebrations affirm their African heritage by drinking from the Unity cup, lighting red, black, and green candles, exchanging heritage symbols, such as African art, and recounting the lives of people who struggled for African and African American freedom. People who celebrate Kwanzaa hope to strengthen the black community by adhering to seven guiding principles, designated by terms from the Swahili language: umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith).

V

African American Arts

A

Music

African American music has influenced musical tastes around the world. Africans introduced Americans to musical rhythms and instruments quite different from the musical traditions of Europeans or Native Americans. In some cases, African musical traditions have blended into American culture with little notice. The banjo, now associated primarily with the bluegrass music popular among white Southerners, was originally an instrument used in African religious ceremonies. Southern slaves adapted the instrument to suit secular (nonreligious) musical styles in the 18th and 19th centuries.

African Americans blended African musical forms with European Christian hymns to create distinctive religious songs known as spirituals. In the early 20th century, the tradition of slave spirituals developed into gospel music, a religious song form which incorporated melodies and rhythms from popular music. Black church choirs around the country continue to sing both gospel and spirituals.

African Americans have also created many secular musical styles. Ragtime music developed among blacks in the urban areas of the North and South after the American Civil War. Another musical style with roots in the African American experience, known as the blues, emerged in the early 1900s. The blues feature vocalists who craft their songs—typically reflections on personal events or emotions—to fit their own distinctive styles.

Both ragtime and the blues contributed to the development of jazz, considered by many to be the most original and complex of American musical forms. Whereas jazz largely eclipsed ragtime, the blues have continued to exist alongside jazz. Jazz musicians often improvise solos based on a theme or melody. Such innovative performers as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Ornette Coleman adapted jazz to a wide variety of styles.

In the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans pioneered new forms of popular music such as rhythm-and-blues and rock and roll (see Rock Music). In the 1960s the Motown Record Company popularized many African American musical groups, including Diana Ross and The Supremes, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The Motown sound emphasized vocal harmonies and lyrics that addressed topics ranging from love to political protest.

In the 1980s and 1990s, rap emerged as the newest form of black musical expression. Combining social commentary with rhythmic lyrics, heavy bass beats, and remixed or original melodies, rap is one of the most controversial of black musical forms. Performers such as Tupac Shakur, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, and Sister Souljah often describe the lives of poor blacks in stark terms, including experiences with racism and police brutality. So-called gangster rappers, who openly express distrust of the criminal justice system and often celebrate criminal activity, are especially controversial.

Black interpretations of classical music have generally found greater acclaim abroad than in the United States. William Grant Still, the foremost African American classical composer of the 20th century, wrote orchestral and solo works from the 1920s through the 1970s. In 1955 Marian Anderson became the first black singer to join New York City’s Metropolitan Opera. Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett, Jessye Norman, and Kathleen Battle subsequently rose to acclaim as opera performers. Pianist André Watts and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis have also achieved critical acclaim as interpreters of the European classical music tradition.

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