African-American StudiesEssay title: African-American StudiesAfrican-American StudiesThe aspect of African-American Studies is key to the lives of African-Americans and those involved with the welfare of the race. African-American Studies is the systematic and critical study of the multidimensional aspects of Black thought and practice in their current and historical unfolding (Karenga, 21). African-American Studies exposes students to the experiences of African-American people and others of African descent. It allows the promotion and sharing of the African-American culture. However, the concept of African-American Studies, like many other studies that focus on a specific group, gender, and/or creed, poses problems. Therefore, African-American Studies must overcome the obstacles in order to improve the state of being for African-Americans.
According to the book, Introduction to Black Studies, by Maulana Karenga, various core principles make of the basis of African-American Studies. Some of the core principles consist of 1)history, 2)religion, 3)sociology, 4)politics, and 5)economics. The core principles serve as the thematic “glue” which holds the core subjects together. The principles assist with the expression of the African-American Studies discipline (Karenga, 27).
The core principle of history is primary factor of African-American Studies. History is the struggle and record of humans in the process of humanizing the world i.e. shaping it in their own image and interests (Karenga, 70). By studying history in African-American Studies, history is allowed to be reconstructed. Reconstruction is vital, for over time, African-American history has been misleading. Similarly, the reconstruction of African-American history demands intervention not only in the academic process to redefines and reestablishes the truth of Black History, but also
intervention in the social process to reshape reality in African-American images and interests and thus, self-consciously make history (Karenga, 69). African American History or Black American History, a history of African-American people in the United States from their arrival in the Americas in the Fifteenth Century until the present day. In 1996, 33.9 million Americans, about one out of every eight people in the United States, were African-American. Although African-American from the West Indies and other areas have migrated to the United States in the Twentieth Century, most African- Americans were born in the United States, and this has been true since the early Nineteenth Century. Until the mid-20th century, the African-American population was concentrated in the Southern states. Even today, nearly half of all African-Americans live in the South. African-Americans also make up a significant part of the population in most urban areas in the eastern United States and in some mid-western and western cities as well .Africans and their descendants have been a part of the story of the Americas at least since the late 1400s. As scouts, interpreters, navigators, and military men, African-Americans were among those who first encountered Native Americans. Beginning in the colonial period, African-Americans provided most of the labor on which European settlement, development, and wealth depended, especially after European wars and diseases decimated Native Americans (
The core concept of African-American religion has always played a vital roles in the African-American life since its beginnings in Africa. Religion is defined as thought, belief, and practice concerned with the transcendent and the ultimate questions of life (Karenga, 211). The vast majority of African Americans practice some form of Protestantism. Protestantism’s relatively loose hierarchical structure, particularly in the Baptist and Methodist denominations, has allowed African Americans to create and maintain separate churches. Separate churches enabled blacks to take up positions of leadership denied to them in mainstream America. In addition to their religious role, African American churches traditionally provide political leadership and serve social welfare functions. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first nationwide black church in the United States, was founded by Protestant minister Richard Allen in Philadelphia in 1816. The largest African American religious denomination is the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., founded in 1895. A significant number of African Americans are Black Muslims. The most prominent Black Muslim group is the Nation of Islam, a religious organization founded by W. D. Fard and Elijiah Poole in 1935. Poole, who changed his name to Elijiah Muhammad, soon emerged as the leader of the Nation of Islam. Elijiah Muhammad established temples in Detroit, Chicago, and other northern cities. Today, Louis Farrakhan leads the Nation of Islam.
In addition to many other African American issues, the United States has a multiracial religious system of faith: Catholicism, Protestantism, Jewish Protestantism with a more western view of the origins of the Church, and Asian Buddhism. One of the major problems of modern interracial religious practice is that, despite all social progress, few people still believe that every black person should be ordained an evangelical preacher. Consequently, the U.S. Congress, with no legislation to address the black problem in America, and in recent decades a largely non-institutionalized religious community has grown out of the traditional denominational and economic structures, often through the formation of “Black Ministries,” “Black Groups,” and “Black Evangelic Organizations.” To address the problems of social order for black men, the Black Ministries were established to provide resources and social services for the poor and minorities of the United States. A group called the Black Ministries.com was established to help them address the needs of the black male population. In the 1950s, the U.S. Congress created the White Ministries Organization, which was composed of two White chaplains and the first Black member of Congress, Martin Luther King, Jr., is considered one of the leading leaders of black spirituality, the first Black African President (Sargent, 1995). However, in 1970, President Richard Nixon became the first President under the Reform and Renewal Acts, and during his first term under Harry Truman the White House worked to restore the federal racial program to full force of law following the 1968 election of Ronald Reagan as President and President Lyndon Johnson as First Lady. Both the first African American president (1973) and the first Black president (1981) were black. In 1990, President Barack Obama became the first President under the Immigration and Nationality Act to formally enter the United States as an immigrant. At a time when the Black minority was growing, the U.S. Civil War has been a major subject of discussion. At least for now, the black vote is concentrated in the states. Nonetheless, black churches and other African American congregations have gained greater influence as a political force in the black community.
In his essay “Sylvain, Lillian, and the Racial Power of the Black White Citizen,” writer Mark Seliman provides an account of Seliman’s own personal experience in the Black Lives Matter movement, and he discusses why such an approach would help change the character of both the social and economic aspects of the movement through black power and black political activism.
- The Black Community of the United States, 1965-2012
On a very general level, the Black minority’s contribution in the United States has been greater than in many other large immigrant societies in the United States. The percentage of Black people living in rural areas in the United States has increased dramatically since the early 1960s, when there were only around 15,500 White residents. Meanwhile, the share of Blacks in the United States population has increased over time, from about 60 percent in 1920, to more than 65 percent today. African American families also constitute about 25 percent of the Black population living near the national median income—a relatively small share of black workers, but enough to make up more than half of the black population in the South and Northeast, and about 13 percent of the black children of the city. Among the first Black immigrants are three well-
-well-educated, single mothers with children of any age, and the number of Black-owned and white commercial and residential properties has tripled by the decade (see Appendix A below, p. 623 for summary data and Appendix B (pp. 626-632)).
In many communities that are predominantly Black (such as Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Los Angeles and Sacramento), where Blacks are disproportionately concentrated, the average Black household income in the United States is about $16,700 per year! In cities such as Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, where the Black income quintile in the United States is much higher than the national average, the income of an average Black person is around $1,200 per year, even though for some households of all ages, between $1,200 and $3,000 per year. However, there are many Black households in the United States that do not earn a living as much, and in many cases that only a few households actually own as many houses that they own! Of course, there is no simple and universally applicable “race-neutral” economic analysis that assesses how many of our members of each race can become members of the Black family (except by the government, which must allocate a great deal of funding). Rather, as noted above, it is important to assess the extent to which one’s identity and belonging to each of our nations—or of even several of our neighbors—involves any individual or one minority. This discussion of how many more white Americans constitute the Black family can only make sense if one considers population structures in which Blacks are concentrated, in large part in rural areas in the United States. The United States has at least one large black community with nearly 8 million members (or perhaps as many as 7 million people in rural areas). In this area, nearly all of the Black population is concentrated among those who are not of one ethnicity: Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. This means that about 45% of all the Black population is concentrated in the cities, counties, townships, and rural areas around the country and that all or some of it is in urban areas and a few places along the south or east coasts. In the small, rural municipalities of the North Valley, the most Black-majority region in the United States, there are also predominantly White residents, but in some areas it too is less so. In California’s Santa Ana County, only 5% of its population is of one ethnicity and 25% is predominantly White, one of the strongest ethnically diverse communities in the region. In Southern California, the majority of all the Black population is concentrated among those with one or more nationalities—which makes the larger, more affluent and wealthy communities, of the area particularly important. Moreover, almost 80% of the Black population is concentrated in rural areas, particularly among those with one or more nonwhite or Middle Eastern heritage. Such areas are among the most desirable for urban expansion, and have become the majority black community in this country. Indeed, over the course of the 20th century, in more than 70% of the counties in this country where Census Bureau data is available, counties have a concentration of Black population that amounts to almost half that of the total population—often as high as 80%. The percentage of such White populations in the United States has been growing rapidly over the past half-century, with increases on