II.

The African American Experience

African American history is intertwined with that of blacks in Latin America and the Caribbean (see Blacks in Latin America). Like other blacks in the western hemisphere, the overwhelming majority of African Americans were brought to North America as slaves between the 1700s and the early 1800s (see Slavery in the United States). As slaves, they were considered the property of their owners and had no rights. African slaves could be found in all 13 of the British colonies, as well as the Spanish colony of Florida and the French colony of Louisiana.

After the American Revolution (1775-1783), changing economic conditions resulted in the decline of slavery in the North. However, the spread of cotton cultivation encouraged the growth of slavery in the South. By 1860, 4 million slaves accounted for one-third of the total population of the southern states. About 500,000 free blacks lived throughout the United States, slightly more than half residing in the southern states. In the North, many free blacks became abolitionists, activists dedicated to ending slavery and bringing about black equality.

In 1863, during the American Civil War (1861-1865), U.S. president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the southern states at war with the North. The 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1865, outlawed slavery in the United States. In 1868 the 14th amendment granted full U.S. citizenship to African Americans. The 15th amendment, ratified in 1870, extended the right to vote to black males.

In the South, such rights were enforced only by the presence of Union troops, who occupied the region during the period known as Reconstruction. When Union troops withdrew from the South in 1877, white Southerners quickly reversed these advances. Racist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, used terrorism to keep blacks from voting, holding office, and enforcing labor contracts. Whites also began establishing a thorough system of segregation in the United States. Laws limiting blacks’ access to transportation, schools, restaurants, and other public facilities, sprang up throughout the South. Although legal systems of segregation were not established in the North or West, informal segregation was enforced in both of these regions.

Blacks responded to these setbacks by forming the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910. The NAACP mounted legal challenges to segregation and lobbied legislatures on behalf of black Americans. African Americans also created an independent community and institutional life. They established schools, banks, newspapers, and small businesses to serve the needs of their community.

Between 1910 and 1950, in the largest internal migration in U.S. history, over 5 million African Americans moved from southern plantations to northern cities in hopes of finding better jobs and greater equality. In the 1920s the concentration of blacks in urban areas led to the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, which used art, music, and literature to demonstrate the creative abilities of African Americans. A new generation of African American political leaders, such as black nationalist Marcus Garvey and union organizer A. Philip Randolph, also found support among urban African Americans.

In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. This decision led to the dismantling of legal segregation in all areas of southern life, from schools to restaurants to public restrooms. Energized by leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights movement in the United States gained new momentum in the mid-1950s. Civil rights groups organized nonviolent protests, such as marches and sit-ins, to rally the black community.

Many Southern whites attempted to hold onto segregation through continued violence. By the mid-1960s some African Americans began to question the effectiveness of nonviolent protest. More militant black leaders, such as Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam and Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panther Party, called for blacks to defend themselves, using violence if necessary. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the Black Power movement urged African Americans to look to Africa for inspiration and emphasized African American solidarity rather than integration.

Responding to pressure from the civil rights movement, the U.S. government sought to open up political and economic opportunities for black Americans. The 1965 Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and labor unions. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which brought equality to black voters throughout the South, was the capstone to more than a decade of major civil rights legislation.