African-Americans

Examples of African-Americans in the following topics:

• African Americans in Southern Politics

  • There were few African Americans elected or appointed to national office.
  • African Americans voted for white candidates and for blacks.
  • As a result, states with majority African-American population often elected only one or two African-American representatives in Congress.
  • Because he preceded any African American in the House, he was the first African American in the U.S.
  • Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African-American in the Congress.

• African Americans as a Political Force

  • Collectively, African Americans are more involved in the American political process than other minority groups.
  • The large majority of African Americans support the Democratic Party.
  • Although there is an African American lobby in foreign policy, it has not had the impact that African American organizations have had in domestic policy.
  • Roosevelt's New Deal program provided economic relief for African Americans.
  • Senator Roland Burris, of Illinois, is currently the only African American senator.

• The Great Migration and the "Promised Land"

  • By 1900, about 90% of African Americans still lived in Southern states.
  • African Americans moved as individuals or small family groups.
  • In 1910, the African American population of Detroit was 6,000.
  • African American migrants were often resented by the urban European American working class, often recent immigrants themselves, because African Americans migrated in large numbers over a short period of time.
  • Many African-Americans migrated North in search of a better life.

• Race and Opportunity

  • By 1810, 75 percent of African Americans in the North and 13.5 percent of all African Americans in the United States were free.
  • Free African American males enjoyed wider employment opportunities than free African American females, who were largely confined to domestic occupations.
  • The African American community also established schools for African American children, who were often barred from entering public schools.
  • While the majority of free African Americans lived in poverty, some were able to establish successful businesses that catered to the African American community.
  • Per the court, African Americans could never be citizens of the United States.

• African Americans in the Military

  • Army during the American Civil War that were composed of African American ("colored") soldiers.
  • In actual numbers, African American soldiers comprised 10% of the entire Union Army.
  • Losses among African Americans were high, and from all reported casualties, approximately 20% of all African Americans enrolled in the military lost their lives during the Civil War.
  • Despite these numerous contributions, discrimination persisted against African Americans in the armed forces.
  • Discuss recruitment and treatment of African Americans int he armed forces during the American Civil War.

• Slavery and the Revolution

  • Many African-Americans viewed the American Revolution as an opportunity to fight for their own liberty and freedom from slavery.
  • Some African Americans also saw the Revolution as a fight for liberty--their own liberty and freedom from slavery.
  • During the American Revolutionary War, African Americans served in both the Continental Army and the British Army.
  • Because of manpower shortages at sea, both the Continental navy and Royal Navy signed African Americans.
  • Some African Americans were captured from the Royal Navy and used by the Patriots on their vessels.

• The Harlem Renaissance

  • Locke, who were pressing for young African American artists to express their African heritage and African American folk culture in their art.
  • Jacob Lawrence (Atlantic City, NJ September 7, 1917; Seattle June 9, 2000) was an African-American painter known for his portrayal of African-American life.
  • He brought the African-American experience to life using blacks and browns juxtaposed with vivid colors.
  • Lawrence is among the best-known 20th-century African-American painters.
  • The series depicted the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North.

• Minstrel Shows

  • Blackface minstrelsy, which portrayed African Americans in stereotyped, troubling ways, was the first distinctly American theatrical form.
  • On the one hand, it had strong racist overtones; on the other hand, it afforded white Americans a singular and broad awareness of what many considered to be African American culture.
  • One such popular routine was “Jump Jim Crow”, a song and dance routine portraying a caricature of an African American first performed in 1832 by white actor Thomas D.
  • Many minstrel songs and routines were depicted as authentically African American; however, this often was not the case.
  • As African Americans began to make advances politically, legally, and socially against racism and prejudicial treatment, minstrelsy lost popularity.

• A Research Example

  • Devah Pager and Lincoln Quillian compared employers' responses on questions involving race-related hiring practices to their actual hiring practices by sending matched pairs of young men to apply for jobs, either both of European descent or both of African descent, but one of the men had a criminal record.
  • Additionally, while the survey results showed no difference in hiring preferences between African-Americans and European-Americans, employers were more than three times as likely to call job applicants with a European lineage back in comparison to Americans with an African lineage.
  • In short, Pager and Quillian found that employers, in their survey responses, were more open to the idea of hiring both African-Americans and ex-offenders than they were to the actual practice.

• Yoruba Artwork in the transAfrican Context

  • The transAfrican style of art was manifest in the work of Jeff Donaldson, an African American visual artist whose work helped define the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
  • In the midst of the racial and cultural turmoil of the 1960s, a group of African-American artists endeavored to relate its artwork to the black masses.
  • Much work made within the transAfrican style borrows heavily from Yoruba traditions.
  • The newly prominent element of shine, an aesthetic effect mimicking or displaying physical shine in order to reflect the bright, star-like quality of ordinary African Americans, is also visible in this piece.
  • Identify the traditional Yoruba references found in contemporary transAfrican style art.