Alternative spellings

African American

Adjective

African-American (comparative more African-American, superlative most African-American)

Positive African-American

Comparative more African-American

Superlative most African-American

1. (of a person) American and black.
2. (nonstandard, of a person) Black.
3. Of or pertaining to the culture of African-American people.

Predominantly Protestant, some Catholics. Minorities practice Islam and other religions

African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry.

Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captive Africans who survived the slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States, although some are—or are descended from—immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations. As an adjective, the term is usually spelled African-American.

African American history starts in the 17th century with indentured servitude in the American colonies and progresses onto the election of an African American as the 44th and current President of the United States – Barack Obama. Between those landmarks there were other events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, that were faced by African Americans. Some of these were: slavery, reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Black Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States and form the second largest racial group after whites in the United States.

An African American (also Afro-American) is a person in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sourced

• If there ever was a monolithic ‘black America’—absolutely and uniformly deprived and aggrieved, with invariant values and attitudes—there certainly isn’t one now.
  • Eugene Robinson in 2007, [1]

• I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
  • Muhammad Ali, The Greatest

• The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.
  • Malcom X, "Racism: the Cancer that is Destroying America", in Egyptian Gazette

• If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything . . . that smacks of discrimination or slander.
  • Mary McLeod Bethune, "Certain Unalienable Rights", What the Negro Wants, edited by Rayford W. Logan

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Mon Feb 1 17:02:20 2010