African Americansis a compelling story of agency, survival, struggle and triumph over adversity. This book illuminates the central place of African-Americans in U.S. history by telling the story of what it has meant to be black in America and how African-American history is inseparably woven into the greater context of American history. African Americansdraws on recent research to present black history within broad social, cultural and political frameworks. From Africa to the 21stcentury, this book follows the long turbulent journey of African-Americans, the rich culture they have nurtured throughout their history and the quest for freedom through which African-Americans have sought to counter oppression and racism. This book also recognizes the diversity within the African-American sphere, providing coverage of class and gender and balancing the lives of ordinary men and women with accounts of black leaders.

Darlene Clark Hine

Darlene Clark Hine is a Board of Trustees professor of African-American studies and professor of history at Northwestern University. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former president of the Organization of American Historians and of the Southern Historical Association. Hine received her B.A. at Roosevelt University in Chicago and her MA. and Ph.D. from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Hine has taught at South Carolina State University and at Purdue University. She also taught at Michigan State University where she was John A. Hannah professor of history. She was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University. She is the author and/or co-editor of 15 books, most recently The Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and Leon Litwack. She co-edited a two-volume set with Earnestine Jenkins, A Question of Manhood: A Reader in Black Men’s History and Masculinity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, 2001) and one with Jacqueline McLeod, Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000pk). With Kathleen Thompson she wrote A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1998) and edited More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996) with Barry Gaspar. She won the Dartmouth Medal of the American Library Association for the reference volumes co-edited with Elsa Barkley Brown and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1993). She is the author of Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890—1950 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). Her forthcoming book is entitled The Black Professional Class: Physicians, Nurses, Lawyers, and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 1890—1955.

 

William C. Hine

William C. Hine received his undergraduate education at Bowling Green State University, his master’s degree at the University of Wyoming and his Ph.D. at Kent State University. He is a professor of history at South Carolina State University. He has had articles published in several journals, including Agricultural History, Labor History and the Journal of Southern History. He is currently writing a history of South Carolina State University.

 

Stanley Harrold

Stanley Harrold, a professor of history at South Carolina State University, received his bachelor’s degree from Allegheny College and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Kent State University. He is co-editor of Southern Dissent, a book series published by the University Press of Florida. In 1991-1992 and 1996-1997 he had National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships. In 2005 he received an NEH Faculty Research Award.  His books include: Gamaliel Bailey and Antislavery Union (Kent, Ohio:  Kent State University Press, 1986), The Abolitionists and the South (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995), Antislavery Violence: Sectional, Racial, and Cultural Conflict in Antebellum America (co-edited with John R. McKivigan; Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,  1999), American Abolitionists (Harlow, U.K.: Longman, 2001), Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 18280-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003), The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Reader (Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 2007) and Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). He has published articles in Civil War History, Journal of Southern History, Radical History Review and Journal of the Early Republic. 

Contents

Preface

About the Authors

 

Part I: Becoming African American

 

Chapter 1: Africa

A Huge and Diverse Land

The Birthplace of Humanity

Ancient Civilizations and Old Arguments

West Africa

Kongo and Angola

West African Society and Culture

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 2: Middle Passage

The European Age of Exploration and Colonization

The Slave Trade in Africa

The Origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Growth of the Atlantic Slave Trade

The African-American Ordeal from Capture to Destination

Landing and Sale in the West Indies

Seasoning

The End of the Journey: Masters and Slaves in the Americas  

The Ending of the Atlantic Slave Trade  

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 3: Black People in Colonial North America, 1526–1763  

The Peoples of Eastern North America  

Black Servitude in the Chesapeake  

Plantation Slavery, 1700–1750  

Slave Life in Early America  

Miscegenation and Creolization  

The Origins of African-American Culture  

Slavery in the Northern Colonies  

Slavery in Spanish Florida and French Louisiana  

Black Women in Colonial America  

Black Resistance and Rebellion

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 4: Rising Expectations: African Americans and the Struggle for Independence, 1763–1783

The Crisis of the British Empire

The Declaration of Independence and African Americans

Black Enlightenment

African Americans in the War for Independence

The Revolution and Emancipation

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 5: African Americans in the New Nation, 1783–1820

Forces for Freedom  

Forces for Slavery  

The Emergence of Free Black Communities  

The War of 1812 

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Part II: Slavery, Abolition, and the Quest for Freedom: The Coming of the Civil War, 1793–1861

 

Chapter 6: Life in the Cotton Kingdom

The Expansion of Slavery

Slave Labor in Agriculture

House Servants and Skilled Slaves

Slave Families

The Socialization of Slaves

Religion

The Character of Slavery and Slaves

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 7: Free Black People in Antebellum America,  1820-1861

Demographics of Freedom  

The Jacksonian Era  

Limited Freedom in the North  

Black Communities in the Urban North  

African-American Institutions  

Free African Americans in the Upper South 

Free African Americans in the Deep South  

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 8: Opposition to Slavery, 1800–1833  

Abolitionism Begins in America  

From Gabriel to Denmark Vesey  

A Country in Turmoil  

Black Abolitionist Women   

The Baltimore Alliance  

David Walker and Nat Turner 

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 9: Let Your Motto be Resistance, 1833–1850  

A Rising Tide of Racism and Violence   

Black Community Institutions  

The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and the Liberty Party  

A More Aggressive Abolitionism  

Black Militancy

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 10: "And Black People Were at the Heart of It": The United States Disunites over Slavery  

The Lure of the West

Fugitive Slaves  

The Rochester Convention, 1853 

Nativism and the Know-Nothings  

Uncle Tom’s Cabin  

The Kansas-Nebraska Act  

Preston Brooks Attacks Charles Sumner 

The Dred Scott Decision  

White Northerners and Black Americans  

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates  

Abraham Lincoln and Black People 

John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry  

The Election of Abraham Lincoln

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Part III: The Civil War, Emancipation, and Black Reconstruction: The Second American Revolution

 

Chapter 11: Liberation: African Americans and the Civil War   

Lincoln’s Aims  

Black Men Volunteer and Are Rejected  

Union Policies toward Confederate Slaves  

The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation  

The Emancipation Proclamation  

Black Men Fight for the Union  

The Confederate Reaction to Black Soldiers  

Black Men in the Union Navy 

Liberators, Spies, and Guides  

Violent Opposition to Black People  

Refugees  

Black People and the Confederacy

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

  

Chapter 12: The Meaning of Freedom: The Promise of Reconstruction, 1865–1868  

The End of Slavery  

Land  

The Freedmen’s Bureau  

Southern Homestead Act  

Sharecropping  

The Black Church  

Education  

Violence  

The Crusade for Political and Civil Rights  

Presidential Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson  

Black Codes  

Black Conventions  

The Radical Republicans  

The Fourteenth Amendment  

Radical Reconstruction  

The Reaction of White Southerners 

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 13: The Meaning of Freedom: The Failure of Reconstruction, 1868–1877

Constitutional Conventions  

Elections  

Black Political Leaders  

The Issues  

Economic Issues  

Black Politicians: An Evaluation  

Republican Factionalism  

Opposition  

The Fifteenth Amendment  

The Enforcement Acts  

The North Loses Interest  

The Freedmen’s Bank  

The Civil Rights Act of 1875  

The End of Reconstruction

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Part IV: Searching for Safe Spaces

 

Chapter 14: White Supremacy Triumphant: African Americans in teh SOuth in the Late Nineteenth Century  

Politics  

Disfranchisement  

Segregation  

Racial Etiquette  

Violence  

Migration  

Black Farm Families 

African Americans and Southern Courts

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 15: African Americans Challenge White Supremacy   

Social Darwinism  

Education and Schools  

Church and Religion  

Red versus Black: The Buffalo Soldiers  

African Americans in the Navy 

The Black Cowboys  

The Spanish-American War  

The Philippine Insurrection  

African Americans and the World’s Columbian Exposition

Black Businesspeople and Entrepreneurs  

African Americans and Labor 

Black Professionals  

Music  

Sports 

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 16: Conciliation, Agitation, and Migration: African Americans in the Early Twentieth Century  

Race and the Progressive Movement  

Booker T. Washington’s Approach  

W. E. B. Du Bois

The Niagara Movement  

The NAACP  

The Urban League 

Black Women and the Club Movement  

The Black Elite  

African-American Inventors

Presidential Politics  

Black Men and the Military in World War I  

Race Riots  

The Great Migration  

Northern Communities 

Families  

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 17: African Americans and the 1920s  

Strikes and the Red Scare 

Varieties of Racism  

Protest, Pride, and Pan-Africanism: Black Organizations in the Twenties 

Labor  

The Harlem Renaissance 

Harlem and the Jazz Age  

Sports 

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Part V: The Great Depression and World War II

 

Chapter 18: The Great Depression and the New Deal  

The Cataclysm, 1929–1933  

The Failure of Relief  

African Americans and the New Deal  

The Rise of Black Social Scientists

Black Protest During the Great Depression  

Organized Labor and Black America  

The Communist Party and African Americans  

The Tuskegee Study

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 19: Black Culture and Society in the 1930s and 1940s 

Black Culture in a Midwestern City  

The Black Culture Industry and American Racism 

The Music Culture from Swing to Bebop  

Popular Culture for the Masses: Comic Strips, Radio, and the Movies 

The Black Chicago Renaissance  

Black Graphic Art  

Black Literature  

African Americans in Sports  

Black Religious Culture

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 20: The World War II Era and Seeds of a Revolution  

On the Eve of War, 1936–1941  

Race and the U.S. Armed Forces 

Black People on the Home Front  

The Transition to Peace 

The Cold War and International Politics

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Part VI: The Black Revolution

 

Chapter 21: The Freedom Movement, 1954–1965  

The 1950s: Prosperity and Prejudice

The Road to Brown

Brown II

New Forms of Protest: The Montgomery Bus Boycott  

No Easy Road to Freedom: 1957–1960  

Black Youth Stand Up by Sitting Down  

A Sight to be Seen: The Movement at High Tide  

The Albany Movement  

The Birmingham Confrontation  

A Hard Victory

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

  

Chapter 22: The Struggle Continues, 1965–1980  

The Fading Dream of Racial Integration: White Backlash and Black Nationalism  

The Black Panther Party  

The Inner-City Rebellions  

Difficulties in Creating the Great Society  

Johnson and the War in Vietnam  

Johnson: Vietnam Destroys the Great Society  

King: Searching for a New Strategy  

The Black Arts Movement and Black Consciousness  

The Second Phase of the Black Student Movement  

The Election of 1968  

The Nixon Presidency  

The Rise of Black Elected Officials  

Economic Downturn  

Black Americans and the Carter Presidency

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Chapter 23: African-Americans at the New Millennium

Progress and Poverty: Income, Education, and Health

The Persistence of Black Poverty

African Americans at The Center Of Art And Culture

Black Religion at the Dawn of the Millennium

Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam

Millennium Marches

Complicating Black Identity in the Twenty-First Century

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

      

Chapter 24: The Triumph of Black Politics, 1980 to Present  

Ronald Reagan and the Conservative Reaction  

Black Political Activism in the Age of Conservative Reaction

Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition  

Policing the Black Community  

The Clinton Presidency  

Black Politics in the New Millennium: The Contested 2000 Presidential Election

Republican Triumph

The 2004 Presidential Election

Barack Obama: President of the United States

Conclusion

Chapter Timeline

Review Questions

MyHistoryLab Connections

 

Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts

Bibliography

Index