African Ancestry

The first people of African descent to come to America arrived in 1619. Brought originally to Virginia and later to other colonies they were, like many Whites, servants. These black-skinned newcomers did not occupy a unique status. Some gained their freedom after serving their masters for a specified period of time; others became free through conversion to Christianity. Most remained as "unfree" men and women, but even they were not considered to be slaves.

By the 1660s the conditions of Blacks began to deteriorate. The expansion of agriculture and the growing demand for a large and cheap labor force brought slavery to American shores. Africans, transported under the most brutal conditions im­aginable to the islands of the Caribbean and to the port cities of the east coast of America, once in the New World, were sold at auction.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the practice of slavery was legalized in every English colony in America. But with the emergence of the United States as an independent nation, the slavery issue became the subject of congres­sional and local debate. The northern states began fairly early to abolish the practice by law, beginning with Pennsylvania where the Assembly, under the prodding of Thomas Paine, passed the first act for the emancipation of Negro slaves on March 1, 1780.

In the South, however, the institute of slavery had become a mainstay of the economic structure. Many southerners, in order to justify their continued subjugation of the Africans, invoked the doctrine of racial superiority. Ultimately the slavery issue was to be resolved in the midst of the bloody Civil War.

On January 1, 1863, by Executive Order, the President issued the Emancipation Proclamation. All slaves in the United States (referring to the rebellious Confederacy as well as the rest of the Union) were declared free—though not yet equal. Equality was to come with the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

During Reconstruction the African-Americans gained equal status in law. Although the Sumner Act of 1875 secured equal rights in public transportation, in hotels, in theaters and other places of amusement, it was to be declared unconstitutional by an eight to one decision of the Supreme Court in 1883. The era of segregation officially began in 1876.

The segregation laws prohibited the mixing of the races and barred "colored people" from virtually all White institutions.

The integration

After World War I, many Blacks began their northward migration. Between 1910 and 1920 a half million moved to northern cities where they settled in tenement districts forming Black islands. The city became their new home and the ghetto their jail. But they experienced residential, social and economic discrimination wherever they went. By 1940 a two to one Black-to-White unemployment ratio emerged—and it persisted long.

During Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" some changes began to bring the Black citizen closer to full equality before the law. Various groups, within and outside the Black community, tried and sometimes succeeded in gaining fairer treatment for America's largest racial minority. World War II accelerated the move.

In the early days of the postwar period, Blacks in the North and in the South shared in the economic boom of the era, but the gap between the racial categories Black and White remained as wide as ever.

In the decade between 1954 and 1963 integration came from the coalition of Black and White reformers. Civil rights organizations were led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The integration phase, if one can call it that, reached its height in the grand march on Washington in August of 1963 when 250,000 Black and White Americans joined hands to sing "We Shall Overcome".

In succeeding years integration was replaced by new, far more Black-oriented ideology – Black Power. Within a few years Black Power had become a household slogan. Within a few years universities and other particularly vulnerable institutions conceded that they had been guilty of racism.

The period of the mid- and late 1970s was one of both consolidation and hesitation. There was consolidation on the part of certain segments of the Black community, particularly those in the growing middle class. However, in making considerable progress, as sociologist William J. Wilson points out, they made even more apparent the widening gap in Black America.