Who Are Minorities? - African-americans

In 1619 the first Africans arrived in colonial North America. Subsequently, their numbers increased rapidly to fill the growing demand for slave labor in the new land. The first slaves were brought into this country by way of the West Indies, but as demand increased, they were soon brought directly to the English colonies on the mainland in North America. Most were delivered to the South and worked on plantations, where they supplied cheap labor.

The vast majority of African-Americans in the United States were kept as slaves until the Civil War (1861–65). At the outbreak of hostilities, according to the 1860 census, the states that comprised the Confederacy in the South had a slave population of 3.5 million, compared with a white population of nearly 5.5 million. By contrast, the Union states and territories in the North had a white population of 21.5 million, with slaves numbering 432,650. It is also worth noting that some Native Americans were slaveholders.

In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Confederate states. In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery throughout the United States. In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment afforded freed slaves equal protection under the law, while in 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment granted them the right to vote. The present population of African-Americans includes not only those descended from former slaves but also those who have since emigrated from Africa, the West Indies, and Central and South America.

According to the Census Bureau, on July 1, 2004, 37.5 million African-Americans lived in the United States. (See Table 1.1.) At that time they represented 12.9% of the population, up from 12.3% in 2000, as reported in Profiles of General Demographic Characteristics 2000 (May 2001, http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/dp1/2kh00.pdf).

Geographic Distribution

Few African-Americans voluntarily migrated from the southern farms and plantations in the first decades after the abolition of slavery. As a result, at the beginning of the twentieth century a large majority of African-Americans still lived in the South. However, when World War I (1914–18) interrupted the flow of migrant labor from Europe, large numbers of African-Americans migrated from the rural South to northern industrial cities to take advantage of new work opportunities. Compared FIGURE 1.4 Region of residence by race, 2002 Jesse McKinnon, "Figure 1. Region of Residence by Race: 2002," in The Black Population in the United States: March 2002, Current Population Reports P20-541, U.S. Census Bureau, April 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-541.pdf (accessed January 16, 2006)with the oppressive system of segregation in the South, economic and social conditions were better in the North for many African-Americans, thereby encouraging a continuous flow of migrants. According to "North by South: The African American Great Migration" (2005, http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/), between 1900 and 1960, 4.8 million African-Americans fled the South and settled in northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and New York. The African-American migrations following World War I and World War II are among the largest voluntary internal migrations in history.

Most African-Americans moved to the Northeast and Midwest, although after 1940 significant numbers also moved West. The traditional migration from the South to the North dwindled dramatically in the 1970s. In fact, after 1975, largely due to the favorable economic conditions developing in booming Sunbelt cities, African-Americans started migrating in droves to the South. In 2002, 55.3% of African-Americans lived in the South. Another 18.1% lived in the Northeast, 18.1% lived in the Midwest, and only 8.6% lived in the West. (See Figure 1.4.)

White Flight

By 2002 African-Americans were significantly more likely than non-Hispanic whites to live in metropolitan FIGURE 1.5 Metropolitan and nonmetropolitan residence by race, 2002 Jesse McKinnon, "Figure 2. Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Residence by Race: 2002," in The Black Population in the United States: March 2002, Current Population Reports P20-541, U.S. Census Bureau, April 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-541.pdf (accessed January 16, 2006)areas, inside of central cities. More than one in two (51.5%) African-Americans lived in these areas, compared with only 21.1% of non-Hispanic whites. In contrast, a higher proportion of whites lived inside metropolitan areas, outside of central cities, than did African-Americans (56.8% and 36%, respectively), as well as in non-metropolitan areas (22.1% and 12.5%, respectively). (See Figure 1.5.)

A primary reason for the high proportion of African-Americans in central cities has been "white flight." Beginning in the 1950s, as African-Americans moved to northeastern and midwestern cities, whites who were economically able to do so moved to suburban areas. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination in housing, African-Americans were not given the same opportunities to move away from cities, whether or not they were economically able to do so. As wealthier whites abandoned city neighborhoods, taking their tax dollars with them, city neighborhoods rapidly deteriorated, leaving poor and nonwhite residents to deal with increasing crime and neighborhood deterioration.