Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Born	(1950-09-16) September 16, 1950 (age 61) Keyser, West Virginia, USA
Occupation	Author, documentary filmmaker, essayist, literary critic, professor
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Yale University (B.A.) University of Cambridge (Ph.D)
Genres	Essay, history, literature
Subjects	African American Studies

Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual. He was the first African American to receive the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He has received numerous honorary degrees and awards for his teaching, research, and development of academic institutions to study black culture. In 2002, Gates was selected to give the Jefferson Lecture, in recognition of his "distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities".

Gates has hosted several PBS television miniseries, including the history and travel program Wonders of the African World and the biographical African American Lives and Faces of America. Gates sits on the boards of many notable arts, cultural, and research institutions. He serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, where he is director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Potomac State College in Keyser, West Virginia. He went on to complete his undergraduate B.A. degree at Yale University, summa cum laude, in History. The first African American to be awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, the day after his undergraduate commencement, Gates set sail on the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 for England and the University of Cambridge where he studied English literature at Clare College and obtained a PhD.

Marriage and family[link]

Gates married Sharon Lynn Adams in 1979.^[1] They had two daughters.^[2] They later divorced.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. In October 1975 he was hired by Charles T. Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. In July 1976, Gates was promoted to the post of Lecturer in Afro-American Studies with the understanding that he would be promoted to Assistant Professor upon completion of his dissertation. Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to Associate Professor in 1984.

After being denied tenure at Yale, Gates accepted a position at Cornell University in 1985, where he taught until 1989. After a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. At Harvard, Gates teaches undergraduate and graduate courses as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, an endowed chair he was appointed to in 2006, and as Professor of English.^[3] Additionally, he serves as the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

As a literary theorist and critic, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions; he draws on structuralism, post-structuralism, and semiotics to textual analysis and matters of identity politics. As a black intellectual and public figure, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the Eurocentric literary canon. He has insisted that black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from Western or European cultural traditions that express a "tone deafness to the black cultural voice" and result in "intellectual racism."^[4] In his major scholarly work, The Signifying Monkey, a 1989 American Book Award winner, Gates expressed what might constitute a black cultural aesthetic. The work extended application of the concept of "signifyin(g)" to analysis of African-American works; it thus rooted African-American literary criticism in the African-American vernacular tradition.

While Gates has stressed the need for greater recognition of black literature and black culture, he does not advocate a "separatist" black canon. Rather, he works for greater recognition of black works and their integration into a larger, pluralistic canon. He has affirmed the value of the Western tradition, but has envisioned a more inclusive canon of diverse works sharing common cultural connections:

Gates has argued that a separatist, Afrocentric education perpetuates racist stereotypes. He maintains that it is "ridiculous" to think that only blacks should be scholars of African and African-American literature. He argues,

"It can't be real as a subject if you have to look like the subject to be an expert in the subject,"^[5] adding, "It's as ridiculous as if someone said I couldn't appreciate Shakespeare because I'm not Anglo-Saxon. I think it's vulgar and racist whether it comes out of a black mouth or a white mouth."^[6]

Supporters of Afrocentrics such as Molefi Asante and others say that they assert not that the study of Africa should be exclusively Black, but that the approach of Afrocentricity is critical for setting up black people as agents of their own history.^[7][8]

As a mediator between those advocating separatism and those who believe in a fixed Western canon, Gates has been criticized by both. Some critics suggest that adding black literature will diminish the value of the Western canon, while separatists say that Gates is too accommodating to the dominant white culture in his advocacy of integration of the canon.^{[citation needed]} Gates is occasionally criticized as non-representative, and a detractor, of Black people by such African-American spokesmen as John Henrik Clarke, Molefi Asante and Maulana Karenga.^[9][10][11]

As a literary historian committed to the preservation and study of historical texts, Gates has been integral to the Black Periodical Literature Project, an archive of black newspapers and magazines created with financial assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities.^[12] To build Harvard's visual, documentary, and literary archives of African-American texts, Gates arranged for the purchase of The Image of the Black in Western Art, a collection assembled by Dominique de Ménil in Houston, Texas.

As a result of research as a MacArthur Fellow, Gates discovered Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson, written in 1859 and thus the first novel in the United States written by a black person. He acquired and authenticated the manuscript of The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, a novel from the same period that scholars believe may have been written as early as 1853. It would have precedence as the first known novel written by a black person in the United States. (Note: Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853) is recognized as the first novel published by an African American, but William Wells Brown wrote and published it in London.) The Bondwoman's Narrative was first published in 2002 and became a bestseller.

As a prominent black intellectual, Gates has concentrated on building academic institutions to study black culture. Additionally, he has worked to bring about social, educational, and intellectual equality for black Americans. His writing includes pieces in The New York Times that defend rap music, and an article in Sports Illustrated that criticizes black youth culture for glorifying basketball over education. In 1992, he received a George Polk Award for his social commentary in The New York Times. Gates's prominence has led to his being called as a witness on behalf of the controversial Florida rap group 2 Live Crew in an obscenity case. He argued that the material which the government charged was profane, had important roots in African-American vernacular speech, games, and literary traditions, and should be protected.

Asked by NEH Chairman Bruce Cole to describe his work, Gates responded, "I would say I'm a literary critic. That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. After that I would say I was a teacher. Both would be just as important."^[5] After his 2003 NEH lecture, Gates published his 2003 book, The Trials of Phillis Wheatley.

Other activities[link]

In 1995 Gates presented a programme in the BBC series Great Railway Journeys (produced in association with PBS). The programme documents a 3000-mile journey Gates took through Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania, with his then wife Sharon Adams and daughters Liza and Meggie Gates (born 1994). This trip came 25 years after Gates worked at a hospital in Kilimatinde near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as a 19-year-old pre-medical student at Yale University.^[13]

Gates was the host and co-producer of African American Lives (2006) and African American Lives 2 (2008) in which the lineage of more than a dozen notable African Americans is traced using genealogical and historic resources, as well as DNA testing. In the first series, Gates learned that he had more than 50 percent European ancestry, and was descended from the mulatto John Redman.^[14] In addition, he discussed findings with guests about their complex ancestries.^[14]

In the second series of episodes, Gates learned that he is part of a genetic subgroup possibly descended from or related to the 4th-century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages. He also learned that his ancestors included the Yoruba people of Nigeria. The two series demonstrated the many strands of heritage and history among African Americans.

Gates hosted Faces of America, a four-part series presented by PBS in 2010. This program examined the genealogy of 12 North Americans of diverse ancestry: Elizabeth Alexander, Mario Batali, Stephen Colbert, Louise Erdrich, Malcolm Gladwell, Eva Longoria, Yo-Yo Ma, Mike Nichols, Queen Noor, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Meryl Streep, and Kristi Yamaguchi

Since 1995, Gates has served as the jury chair for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which honor written works that contribute to society's understanding of racism and the diversity of human culture. Gates was an Anisfield-Wolf prize winner in 1989 for The Schomburg Library of Women Writers.

Airing in 2012, he hosted a PBS TV series called "Finding Your Roots - with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.".^[15]

"Ending the Slavery Blame-Game" editorial[link]

In 2010, Gates wrote an editorial in The New York Times which discussed the role played by Africans in the slave trade.^[16] In an article for Newsweek, journalist Lisa Miller reported on the reaction to the editorial:

The enemy of individuality is groupthink, Gates says, and here he holds everyone accountable. Recently, he has enraged many of his colleagues in the African-American studies field--especially those campaigning for government reparations for slavery--by insistently reminding them, as he did in a New York Times op-ed last year, that the folks who captured and sold blacks into slavery in the first place were also Africans, working for profit. "People wanted to kill me, man," Gates says of the reaction to that op-ed. "Black people were so angry at me. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good black people. The world just isn't like that."

Gates's critics say he's a provocateur and publicity hound, stretched too thin and puffed up by his celebrity friends. Lolita Buckner Inniss, a professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, wrote a letter to The New York Times in response to the Gates piece in which she pointed out the obvious. No matter who did the capturing, it was white people who created the market for African slaves and perpetuated the practice even after the import trade was banned. "My first thought was, he's kidding, right?" she told me. "Up until that recent piece, people would have thought of him as someone who took a cautious and nuanced approach to questions like reparations." Gates has such an eminent reputation, she said, and "so much gravitas. Many of us were troubled."^[17]

The editorial begins and ends with the observation that it is very difficult to decide whether or not to give reparations to the descendants of American slaves, in other words whether they should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage. Gates also points out that it is equally difficult to decide who should get these reparations and who should pay them.

Cambridge arrest[link]

On July 16, 2009, Gates returned home from a trip to China to find the door to his house jammed. His driver attempted to help him gain entrance. A passerby called police reporting a possible break-in after seeing windows being broken. A Cambridge police officer was dispatched. The resulting confrontation resulted in Gates being arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Prosecutors later dropped the charges.^[18] The incident spurred a politically charged exchange of views about race relations and law enforcement throughout the United States. The arrest attracted national attention after U.S. President Barack Obama declared that the police "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates. The President eventually extended an invitation to both Gates and the officer involved to share a beer with him at the White House.^[19]

On March 9, 2010, Gates claimed on the Oprah Winfrey Show that he and Sgt. James Crowley, the arresting officer in the Cambridge incident, share a common ancestor, an ancient Irish king.

Awards and honors[link]

• Gates has been the recipient of 51 honorary degrees and numerous academic and social action awards.
• Gates was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1981.
• He was listed in Time among its “25 Most Influential Americans” in 1997. Ebony Magazine listed him among its "100 Most Influential Black Americans" in 2005, and in 2009, Ebony included him on its "Power 150" list.
• In 2002 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Gates for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.^[20] Gates's lecture was entitled "Mister Jefferson and the Trials of Phillis Wheatley."^[21] It was the basis of his later book The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers (2003).^[22]
• Gates received the National Humanities Medal in 1998 and the 2008 Ralph Lowell Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the highest honor in the field of public television, in 2009. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999.
• On October 23, 2006, Gates was appointed the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor at Harvard University. He has been the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research since arriving at Harvard in 1991.
• In January 2008, he co-founded The Root, a website dedicated to African-American perspectives and published by The Washington Post Company.
• Gates serves as the Chair for the Selection Committee for the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr., Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Fletcher Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Fletcher Asset Management.
• He is on the boards of many notable institutions including the New York Public Library, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Aspen Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Studio Museum of Harlem, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, HEAF (the Harlem Educational Activities Fund), and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, located in Stanford, California.^[3] He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.
• In 2006, Gates was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution after tracing his lineage back to John Redman, a free African American who fought in the Revolutionary War.^[14]
• In 2010, Gates became the first African American to have his genome fully sequenced. He is also half of the first father-son pair to have their genomes fully sequenced. Knome performed the analysis as part of the "Faces of America" project.

Bibliography[link]

Books (author)

• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1987). Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the "Racial" Self (First ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503564-X. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1988). The Signifying Monkey (First ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503463-5.  American Book Award
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1992). Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (First ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507519-6. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1994). Colored People: A Memoir (First ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-42179-3. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.; Cornel West (1996). The Future of the Race (First ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-44405-X. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.; McKay, Nellie Y (1996). The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (First ed.). W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-04001-1. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1997). Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (First ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN 0-679-45713-5. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1999). Wonders of the African World (First ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40235-7. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2000). The African American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century (First ed.). New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86414-2. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2003). The trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's first Black poet and her encounters with the founding fathers. New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 0-465-02729-6. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2007). Finding Oprah's Roots: Finding Your Own (First ed.). New York: Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-38238-2. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2009). In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past. Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-38240-5. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2010). Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary Americans Reclaimed Their Pasts. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3264-9. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2010). Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora. Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 0-465-01410-0. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2011). Black in Latin America. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3298-4. 

Books (editor)

• Appiah, Kwame Anthony; Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1998). The Dictionary of Global Culture. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-679-72985-3. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1999). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (First ed.). New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 0-465-00071-1. 
• Crafts, Hannah; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2002). The Bondwoman's Narrative (First ed.). New York: Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-69029-5. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.; Hollis Robbins (2004). Searching for Hannah Crafts: Essays in the Bondwoman's Narrative. New York: Basic/Civitas. ISBN 0-465-02714-8. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.; Hollis Robbins (2006). The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-05946-5. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2008). The African American national biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516019-2. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.; Yacovone, Donald (2009). Lincoln on Race and Slavery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14234-0. 
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.; Kwame Anthony Appiah (2010). Encyclopedia of Africa: Two-Volume Set. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-533770-0. 

Articles

• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1 December 2008). "Personal History: Family Matters". The New Yorker 84 (39): 34–38.  Abstract and related family history materials.

Films

• "Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.", screenwriter, narrator, and co-producer. PBS, ten part series, March-May 2012
• “Faces of America,” screenwriter, narrator, and co-producer. Four-hour series, PBS, February 10-March 3, 2010.
• “Looking for Lincoln,” screenwriter, narrator, and co-producer. Two-hour program, PBS, February 11, 2009.
• “African American Lives 2,” screenwriter, narrator, and co-producer. Four-hour series, PBS, February 6 and 13, 2008.
• “Oprah’s Roots: An African American Lives Special,” screenwriter, narrator, and co-producer. One-hour program, PBS, January 24, 2007.
• “African American Lives,” screenwriter and narrator. Four-hour series, PBS, February 1 and 8, 2006.
• “America Beyond the Color Line,” screenwriter and narrator. Four-hour series, BBC2./PBS, February 2 and 4, 2004.
• “Wonders of the African World,” screenwriter and narrator. Six part-series, PBS, October 25–27, 1999 (shown as “Into Africa” on BBC-2 in the United Kingdom and South Africa, Summer, 1999).
• “Leaving Cleaver: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Remembers Eldridge Cleaver,” WGBH, 1999.
• “Wonders of the African World,” screenwriter and narrator. Six-part series, BBC/PBS, 1998.
• “The Two Nations of Black America,” screenwriter and host. In “Frontline,” WGBH-TV, February 11, 1998.
• “From Great Zimbabwe to Kilimatinde,” screenwriter and narrator. In “Great Rail Journeys,” BBC/PBS, 1996.

Filmography[link]

• Finding Your Roots, PBS, Executive Producer, Writer and Host, PBS, 2012
• Black in Latin America, PBS, Executive Producer, Writer and Presenter, PBS, April 19-May 10, 2011.
• From Great Zimbabwe to Kilimatinde, BBC/PBS, Great Railway Journeys, Narrator and Screenwriter, BBC/PBS, 1996.
• The Two Nations of Black America, Host and Scriptwriter, Frontline, WGBH-TV, February 11, 1998.
• Leaving Eldridge Cleaver, WGBH, 1999
• Wonders of the African World, PBS, October 25–27, 1999 (six-part series)
  • Shown as Into Africa on BBC-2 in the United Kingdom and South Africa, Summer, 1999
• America Beyond the Color Line, Host and Scriptwriter, (four part series) PBS, 2004.^[23]
• African American Lives, Host and Narrator, PBS, February 2006
• African American Lives 2, Host and Narrator, PBS, February 2008
• Looking For Lincoln, Host and Narrator, PBS, February 2009
• Appiah, Anthony; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr (1999). Microsoft Encarta Africana Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Black History and Culture (First ed.). Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corp. ISBN 0-7356-0057-0. ^[24] (CD-Rom)
• Credited for his involvement in Unchained Memories (2003)

References[link]

External links[link]

	African American portal
	Biography portal
	Literature portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Henry Louis Gates

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Henry Louis Gates

• Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Harvard Faculty webpage
• Henry Louis Gates at the Internet Movie Database
• The Root
• Wonders of the African World Program with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for PBS
• Article from Harvard Gazette on Gates after C. West and K.A. Appiah left for Princeton
• Articles from the Harvard Crimson on Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
• Maya Jaggi, "Henry the first", profile of Gates in The Guardian, July 6, 2002
• Archive of contributions to The New Yorker
• The 2009 Cambridge police arrest report
• Gates speaking at the Library of Congress
• Public School Insights Interview with Henry Louis Gates, Jr August 19, 2008
• Booknotes interview with Gates on Colored People, October 9, 1994.

African American

Frederick Douglass · Barack Obama · Rosa Parks Condoleezza Rice · M. L. King, Jr. · Beyoncé Knowles Malcolm X · Oprah Winfrey · Booker T. Washington Michael Jordan · Harriet Tubman · Muhammad Ali
Total population
African American 42,020,743[1] (13.6% of the US population)
Regions with significant populations
Predominantly in the Southern United States and in urban areas within the country
Languages
American English · African American Vernacular English · Gullah language
Religion
Predominantly Protestant; also Roman Catholic, Muslim and agnostic
Related ethnic groups
Other Afro-American peoples of the Americas (especially Anglophones) Americo-Liberians · Sierra Leone Creole people Black Nova Scotians, Foreign-born Afro-Americans, Afro-Latin American view talk edit

African Americans^[2] (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States that have ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.^[3]

African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States.^[4] Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States.^[5][6] However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term.^[3]

African-American history starts in the 16th century with African slaves who quickly rose up against the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and progresses to the present day, with Barack Obama as the 44th and current President of the United States. Between those landmarks there have been events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, including slavery, racism, Reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.

History[link]

Slavery era[link]

The first African slaves arrived in the present-day United States as part of the San Miguel de Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina), founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526. The ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic and the colony was abandoned, leaving the escaped slaves behind on North American soil.

In 1565, the colony of Saint Augustine in Florida, founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, became the first permanent European settlement in North America. It included an unknown number of free and enslaved Africans that were part of this colonial expedition.

The first recorded Africans in British North America (including most of the future United States) arrived in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. As English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. The Africans were likely treated as indentured servants, similar in legal position to poor English indenturees, who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America.^[7] Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom.^[8] They raised families, marrying other Africans and sometimes intermarrying with Native Americans or English settlers.^[9] By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards.

An artist's conception of Crispus Attucks (1723–1770), the first "martyr" of the American Revolution.

The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 18th century. The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the importation of eleven black slaves into New Amsterdam (present-day New York City). All the colony's slaves, however, were freed upon its surrender to the British.^[10] Massachusetts was the first British colony to legally recognize slavery in 1641. It was not until 1662 that Virginia ruled that a slave mother's children would remain slaves.^[11]

The first black congregations and churches were organized before 1800 in both northern and southern cities following the Great Awakening. By 1775, Africans made up 20% of the population in the American colonies, which made them the second largest ethnic group after the English.^[12] During the 1770s, Africans, both enslaved and free, helped rebellious English colonists secure American Independence by defeating the British in the American Revolution.^[13] Africans and Englishmen fought side by side and were fully integrated.^[14] James Armistead, an African American, played a large part in making possible the 1781 Yorktown victory, which established the United States as an independent nation.^[15] Other prominent African Americans were Prince Whipple and Oliver Cromwell, who are both depicted in the front of the boat in George Washington's famous 1776 Crossing the Delaware portrait.

By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the United States due to the Atlantic slave trade, and another 500,000 African Americans lived free across the country.^[16] In 1863, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared that all slaves in states which had seceded from the Union were free.^[17] Advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation with Texas being the last state to be emancipated in 1865.^[18]

Reconstruction and Jim Crow[link]

Jesse Owens shook racial stereotypes both with Nazis and segregationists in the USA at the 1936 Berlin olympics.

African Americans quickly set up congregations for themselves, as well as schools, community and civic associations, to have space away from white control or oversight. While the post-war reconstruction era was initially a time of progress for African Americans, in the late 1890s, Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement.^[19] Most African Americans followed the Jim Crow laws, using a mask of compliance to prevent becoming victims of racially motivated violence. To maintain self-esteem and dignity, African Americans such as Anthony Overton and Mary McLeod Bethune continued to build their own schools, churches, banks, social clubs, and other businesses.^[20]

In the last decade of the 19th century, racially discriminatory laws and racial violence aimed at African Americans began to mushroom in the United States. These discriminatory acts included racial segregation—upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896^[21]—which was legally mandated by southern states and nationwide at the local level of government, voter suppression or disenfranchisement in the southern states, denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, and private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans unhindered or encouraged by government authorities.

Great Migration and Civil Rights Movement[link]

The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South that sparked the Great Migration of the early 20th century,^[22] combined with a growing African American community in the Northern United States, led to a movement to fight violence and discrimination against African Americans that, like abolitionism before it, crossed racial lines. The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 was directed at abolishing racial discrimination against African Americans, particularly in the Southern United States. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the conditions which brought it into being are credited with putting pressure on President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

An African American boy outside of Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1940s

March on Washington, August 28, 1963, shows civil rights and union leaders

Johnson put his support behind passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and labor unions, and the Voting Rights Act (1965), which expanded federal authority over states to ensure black political participation through protection of voter registration and elections. By 1966, the emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted from 1966 to 1975, expanded upon the aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from white authority.^[23]

Post-Civil Rights era[link]

Politically and economically, blacks have made substantial strides during the post-civil rights era. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African-American elected governor in U.S. history. There is currently one black governor; governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Clarence Thomas became the second African-American Supreme Court Justice. In 1992 Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate. There were 8,936 black officeholders in the United States in 2000, showing a net increase of 7,467 since 1970. In 2001 there were 484 black mayors.

On November 4, 2008, Democratic Senator Barack Obama defeated Republican Senator John McCain to become the first African American to be elected President. At least 95 percent of African-American voters voted for Obama.^[24][25] He also received overwhelming support from young and educated whites, a majority of Asians, Hispanics,^[26] and Native Americans^{[27][not in citation given]} picking up a number of new states in the Democratic electoral column.^[24][25] Obama lost the overall white vote, although he won a larger proportion of white votes than any previous nonincumbent Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter.^[28] The following year Michael S. Steele was elected the first African-American chairman of the national Republican Party.^[29]

Demographics[link]

African Americans as a percentage of total population, 2000.

In 1790, when the first U.S. Census was taken, Africans (including slaves and free people) numbered about 760,000—about 19.3% of the population. In 1860, at the start of the Civil War, the African American population had increased to 4.4 million, but the percentage rate dropped to 14% of the overall population of the country. The vast majority were slaves, with only 488,000 counted as "freemen". By 1900, the black population had doubled and reached 8.8 million. In 1910, about 90% of African Americans lived in the South, but large numbers began migrating north looking for better job opportunities and living conditions, and to escape Jim Crow laws and racial violence. The Great Migration, as it was called, spanned the 1890s to the 1970s. From 1916 through the 1960s, more than 6 million black people moved north. But in the 1970s and 1980s, that trend reversed, with more African Americans moving south to the Sun Belt than leaving it.

The following table of the African American population in the United States over time shows that the African American population, as a percentage of the total population, declined until 1930 and has been rising since then.

By 1990, the African American population reached about 30 million and represented 12% of the U.S. population, roughly the same proportion as in 1900.^[31] In 2010, 38.9 million Americans identified as "Black or African American," representing 12.6% of the population. Controversy has surrounded the "accurate" population count of African Americans for decades. The NAACP believed it was under counted intentionally to minimize the significance of the black population in order to reduce their political power base^{[citation needed]}.

At the time of the 2000 Census, 54.8% of African Americans lived in the South. In that year, 17.6% of African Americans lived in the Northeast and 18.7% in the Midwest, while only 8.9% lived in the western states. The west does have a sizable black population in certain areas, however. California, the nation's most populous state, has the fifth largest African American population, only behind New York, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. According to the 2000 Census, approximately 2.05% of African Americans identified as Hispanic or Latino in origin,^[4] many of whom may be of Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Haitian, or other Latin American descent. The only self-reported ancestral groups larger than African Americans are the Irish and Germans.^[32] Because many African Americans trace their ancestry to colonial American origins, some simply self-identify as "American".^{[citation needed]}

U.S. cities[link]

Almost 58% of African Americans lived in metropolitan areas in 2000. With over 2 million black residents, New York City had the largest black urban population in the United States in 2000, overall the city has a 28% black population. Chicago has the second largest black population, with almost 1.6 million African Americans in its metropolitan area, representing about 18 percent of the total metropolitan population.

Among cities of 100,000 or more, Detroit, Michigan had the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. city in 2010, with 82%. Other large cities with African American majorities include New Orleans, Louisiana (60%), Baltimore, Maryland (63%) Atlanta, Georgia (54%), Memphis, Tennessee (61%), and Washington, D.C. (50.7%).

The nation's most affluent county with an African American majority is Prince George's County, Maryland, with a median income of $62,467. Within that county, among the wealthiest communities are Glenn Dale, Maryland and Fort Washington, Maryland. Other affluent predominantly African American counties include Dekalb County in Georgia, and Charles City County in Virginia. Queens County, New York is the only county with a population of 65,000 or more where African Americans have a higher median household income than White Americans.^[33]

Education[link]

Charles F. Bolden, Jr. is the current Administrator of NASA

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By 2000, African Americans had advanced greatly. They still lagged overall in education attainment compared to white or Asian Americans, with 14 percent with four year and 5 percent with advanced degrees, though it was higher than for other minorities.^[34] African Americans attend college at about half the rate of whites, but at a greater rate than Americans of Hispanic origin. More African American women attend and complete college than men. Black schools for kindergarten through twelfth grade students were common throughout the U.S., and a pattern towards re-segregation is currently occurring across the country.^[35]

Historically black colleges and universities remain today which were originally set up when segregated colleges did not admit African Americans. As late as 1947, about one third of African Americans over 65 were considered to lack the literacy to read and write their own names. By 1969, illiteracy as it had been traditionally defined, had been largely eradicated among younger African Americans.^[36]

US Census surveys showed that by 1998, 89 percent of African Americans aged 25 to 29 had completed high school, less than whites or Asians, but more than Hispanics. On many college entrance, standardized tests and grades, African Americans have historically lagged behind whites, but some studies suggest that the achievement gap has been closing. Many policy makers have proposed that this gap can and will be eliminated through policies such as affirmative action, desegregation, and multiculturalism.^[37]

In Chicago, Marva Collins, an African American educator, created a low cost private school specifically for the purpose of teaching low-income African American children whom the public school system had labeled as being "learning disabled".^[38] One article about Marva Collins' school stated,

Working with students having the worst of backgrounds, those who were working far below grade level, and even those who had been labeled as 'unteachable,' Marva was able to overcome the obstacles. News of third grade students reading at ninth grade level, four-year-olds learning to read in only a few months, outstanding test scores, disappearance of behavioral problems, second-graders studying Shakespeare, and other incredible reports, astounded the public.^[39]

During the 2006–2007 school year, Collins' school charged $5,500 for tuition, and parents said that the school did a much better job than the Chicago public school system.^[40] Meanwhile, during the 2007–2008 year, Chicago public school officials claimed that their budget of $11,300 per student was not enough.^[41]

Economic status[link]

Economically, African Americans have benefited from the advances made during the Civil Rights era, particularly among the educated, but not without the lingering effects of historical marginalization when considered as a whole. The racial disparity in poverty rates has narrowed. The black middle class has grown substantially. In 2010, 45% of Africa-Americans owned their homes, compared to 67% of all Americans.^[42] The poverty rate among African Americans has decreased from 26.5% in 1998 to 24.7% in 2004, compared to 12.7% for all Americans.^[43] African Americans have a combined buying power of over $892 billion currently and likely over $1.1 trillion by 2012.^[44][45] In 2002, African American-owned businesses accounted for 1.2 million of the US's 23 million businesses.^[46] As of 2011 African American-owned business account for approximately 2 million US businesses.^[47] Black-owned businesses experienced the largest growth in number of businesses among minorities from 2002 to 2011.^[47]

Oprah Winfrey, the wealthiest African American of the 20th century.^[48][49][50] A pair of economists estimate that Winfrey's endorsement of Barack Obama delivered one million votes for him in the close 2008 Democratic primaries.^[51]