Black Americans
Black Americans are those persons in the United States who trace their ancestry to members of the Negroid race in Africa. They have at various times in United States history been referred to as African, coloured, Negro, Afro-American, and African-American, as well as black. The black population of the United States has grown from three-quarters of a million in 1790 to nearly 30 million in 1990. As a percentage of the total population, blacks declined from 19.3 in 1790 to 9.7 in 1930. A modest percentage increase has occurred since that time.Over the past 300 and more years in the United States, considerable racial mixture has taken place between persons of African descent and those with other racial backgrounds, mainly of white European or American Indian ancestry.Shades of skin colour range from dark brown to ivory. In body type black Americans range from short and stocky to tall and lean. Nose shapes vary from aquiline to extremely broad and flat; hair colour from medium brown to brown black; and hair texture from tightly curled to limp and straight.Historically, the predominant attitude toward racial group membership in the United States has been that persons having any black African ancestry a
" By 1740 the SLAVERY system in colonial America was fully developed. The influence of jazz on other forms of popular music in America is clearly recognized. By 1920 it was popular throughout the country. Overseers were harsh as a matter of general practice, and brutality was common. Because women were often able to find domestic employment when no jobs were available to black men, women often provided more dependable and regular incomes. Her arrest resulted in a series of meetings of blacks in Montgomery and a boycott of buses on which racial segregation was practiced. Prior to the American Revolution, slavery existed in all the colonies. The boycott began when Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. The overwhelming majority of black children now attend formally integrated schools, although they may have little contact with white pupils even within the schools. Early artists and writers who were black dealt with themes that, in selection and approach, were indistinguishable from the works of whites. A 1662 Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life, and a 1667 act declared that "Baptism do not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom. Free blacks, whether living in the North or South, were confronted with attitudes and actions that differed little from those facing Southern black slaves. The enduring popularity of Louis ARMSTRONG and Duke ELLINGTON over several decades attests to its continuing attraction.
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