The number of illegal immigrants added yet more to the total, as the United States was transformed into an immigrant society once again.
Black America was similarly transformed. Before , black people of foreign birth residing in the United States were nearly invisible. According to the census, their percentage of the population was to the right of the decimal point. But after , men and women of African descent entered the United States in ever-increasing numbers.
During the s, some , black immigrants came from the Caribbean; another , came from Africa; still others came from Europe and the Pacific rim. By the beginning of the 21st century, more people had come from Africa to live in the United States than during the centuries of the slave trade. At that point, nearly one in ten black Americans was an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. African-American society has begun to reflect this change.
To many of these men and women, Juneteenth celebrations—the commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States—are at best an afterthought. The new arrivals frequently echo the words of the men and women I met outside the radio broadcast booth.
At the same time, some old-time black residents refuse to recognize the new arrivals as true African-Americans. To his surprise and dismay, the overwhelmingly black audience responded no. After each migration, the newcomers created new understandings of the African-American experience and new definitions of blackness.
Given the numbers of black immigrants arriving after , and the diversity of their origins, it should be no surprise that the overarching narrative of African-American history has become a subject of contention. Like Booker T. This narrative retains incalculable value. It reminds men and women that a shared past binds them together, even when distance and different circumstances and experiences create diverse interests.
While recognizing the realities of black poverty and inequality, it nevertheless depicts the trajectory of black life moving along what Dr. Yet this story has had less direct relevance for black immigrants. One of her societies, Sisters of Usefulness, could have had as many as two to three dozen members. Cities like Baltimore even passed laws against these societies — a sure sign of their popularity.
Other cities reluctantly tolerated them, requiring that a white person be present at meetings. During the tumult of the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of Black people sought refuge behind Union lines.
Most were impoverished, but a few managed to bring with them wealth they had stashed under beds, in private chests, and in other hiding places. After the war, Black people fought through the Southern Claims Commission for the return of the wealth Union and Confederate soldiers impounded or outright stole. Much is made about how colonial Black Americans — some free, some enslaved — fought during the American Revolution.
Black revolutionary soldiers are usually called Black Patriots. But the term Patriot is reserved within revolutionary discourse to refer to the men of the 13 colonies who believed in the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence: that America should be an independent country, free from Britain. These persons were willing to fight for this cause, join the Continental Army, and, for their sacrifice, are forever considered Patriots.
First off, Black revolutionary soldiers did not fight out of love for a country that enslaved and oppressed them. Black revolutionary soldiers were fighting for freedom — not for America, but for themselves and the race as a whole. In fact, the American Revolution is a case study of interest convergence.
Interest convergence denotes that within racial states such as the 13 colonies, any progress made for Black people can only be made if that progress also benefits the dominant culture — in this case the liberation of the white colonists of America. In , Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia who wanted to quickly end the war, issued a proclamation to free enslaved Black people if they defected from the colonies and fought for the British army.
In response, George Washington revised the policy that restricted Black persons free or enslaved from joining his Continental Army. His reversal was based in a convergence of his interests: competing with a growing British military, securing the slave economy, and increasing labor needs for the Continental Army. When enslaved persons left the plantation, this caused serious social and economic unrest in the colonies.
These defections were encouragement for many white plantation owners to join the Patriotic cause even if they previously held reservations. Washington also saw other benefits in Black enlistment: White revolutionary soldiers only fought in three- to four-month increments and returned to their farms or plantation, but many Black soldiers could serve longer terms.
The need for the Black soldier was essential for the war effort, and the need to win the war became greater than racial or racist ideology. Interests converged with those of Black revolutionary soldiers as well. Once the American colonies promised freedom, about a quarter of the Continental Army became Black; before that, more Black people defected to the British military for a chance to be free.
Black revolutionary soldiers understood the stakes of the war and realized that they could also benefit and leave bondage. Black people played a dual role — service with the American forces and fleeing to the British — both for freedom. The notion of the Black Patriot is a misused term. A dangerous myth that continues to haunt Black Americans is the belief that the government infected Black men in Macon County, Alabama, with syphilis. This myth has created generations of African Americans with a healthy distrust of the American medical profession.
The purpose of the experiment was to test the impact of syphilis untreated and was conducted at what is now Tuskegee University, a historically Black university in Macon County, Alabama. The Black men in the experiment were not given syphilis. Instead, men already had stages of the disease, and the who did not served as a control group. Both groups were withheld from treatment of any kind for the 40 years they were observed. The men were subjected to humiliating and often painfully invasive tests and experiments including spinal taps.
Many assume blacks live in ghettos, often in high-rise public housing projects. Crime and the welfare check are seen as their main source of income. The stereotype crosses racial lines. Blacks are even more prone than whites to exaggerate the extent to which African Americans are trapped in inner-city poverty. In a Gallup poll, about one-fifth of all whites, but almost half of black respondents, said that at least three out of four African Americans were impoverished urban residents.
And yet, in reality, blacks who consider themselves to be middle class outnumber those with incomes below the poverty line by a wide margin.
Fifty years ago most blacks were indeed trapped in poverty, although they did not reside in inner cities. When Gunnar Myrdal published An American Dilemma in , most blacks lived in the South and on the land as laborers and sharecroppers.
Only one in eight owned the land on which he worked. A trivial 5 percent of black men nationally were engaged in nonmanual, white-collar work of any kind; the vast majority held ill-paid, insecure, manual jobs—jobs that few whites would take. As already noted, six out of ten African-American women were household servants who, driven by economic desperation, often worked hour days for pathetically low wages.
But the number was minuscule. Beginning in the s, however, deep demographic and economic change, accompanied by a marked shift in white racial attitudes, started blacks down the road to much greater equality. New Deal legislation, which set minimum wages and hours and eliminated the incentive of southern employers to hire low-wage black workers, put a damper on further industrial development in the region.
In addition, the trend toward mechanized agriculture and a diminished demand for American cotton in the face of international competition combined to displace blacks from the land. As a consequence, with the shortage of workers in northern manufacturing plants following the outbreak of World War II, southern blacks in search of jobs boarded trains and buses in a Great Migration that lasted through the mids.
They found what they were looking for: wages so strikingly high that in the average income for a black family in the North was almost twice that of those who remained in the South.
And through much of the s wages rose steadily and unemployment was low. Thus by only one out of seven black men still labored on the land, and almost a quarter were in white-collar or skilled manual occupations. Another 24 percent had semiskilled factory jobs that meant membership in the stable working class, while the proportion of black women working as servants had been cut in half. Even those who did not move up into higher-ranking jobs were doing much better. A decade later, the gains were even more striking.
From to , black men cut the income gap by about a third, and by they were earning on average roughly 60 percent of what white men took in. The advancement of black women was even more impressive. Black life expectancy went up dramatically, as did black homeownership rates. Black college enrollment also rose—by to about 10 percent of the total, three times the prewar figure.
In subsequent years these trends continued, although at a more leisurely pace. For instance, today more than 30 percent of black men and nearly 60 percent of black women hold white-collar jobs. Whereas in only 2. But while the fraction of black families with middle-class incomes rose almost 40 percentage points between and , it has inched up only another 10 points since then. Rapid change in the status of blacks for several decades followed by a definite slowdown that begins just when affirmative action policies get their start: that story certainly seems to suggest that racial preferences have enjoyed an inflated reputation.
In fact, not only did significant advances pre-date the affirmative action era, but the benefits of race-conscious politics are not clear. Important differences a slower overall rate of economic growth, most notably separate the pre and post periods, making comparison difficult. We know only this: some gains are probably attributable to race-conscious educational and employment policies.
The number of black college and university professors more than doubled between and ; the number of physicians tripled; the number of engineers almost quadrupled; and the number of attorneys increased more than sixfold. On the other hand, these professionals make up a small fraction of the total black middle class.
And their numbers would have grown without preferences, the historical record strongly suggests. In addition, the greatest economic gains for African Americans since the early s were in the years to and occurred mainly in the South, as economists John J.
With respect to federal, state, and municipal set-asides, as well, the jury is still out. In the state of Maryland decided that at least 10 percent of the contracts it awarded would go to minority- and female-owned firms. It more than met its goal. But how well do these sheltered businesses survive long-term without extraordinary protection from free-market competition?
And with almost 30 percent of black families still living in poverty, what is their trickle-down effect?
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