HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS

Historical Progression of African Americans

Historical Progression of African Americans

Introduction

Afro-Americans historiography, with its own conceptual and methodological concerns, is now poised to illuminate the Afro-American past in a manner that will broaden and deepen our knowledge of black people in the country. The history of Afro-Americans is no longer undertaken principally to revise the work of wrongheaded white historians, to discern divine providence. In order to show black participation in the nation's growth and development, to prove the inevitability of black equality, or to demonstrate the inexorable progress made by Afro-Americans. It is conducted as a distinct area of inquiry, within the discipline of history, with black people as its primary focus to reveal their thought and activities over time and place.

Today, the history of Afro-Americans is a respected and a constitutional field of American history. As we approach the twenty-0first century, the time has come to assess and evaluate the historical outpouring of the last few decades. Beyond assessment and evaluation, there is a challenge of charting new directions, raising new issues and concerns about the future context and nature of black history.

This paper discusses the historical progression of the African Americans from 1865 to present.

Discussion

Most people think that American history is the story of white people, and that is why black people, in recent years, have been demanding a history of their own. Standard histories are even more restrictive than is universally allowed. Except for the necessary discussion of Afro-Americans in slavery and some treatment of immigrants, the taught history of the United States has been that of Anglo-Saxons and Northern Europeans. Even the current consciousness of Negro history, though it has resulted in efforts to improve the nonwhite's image, has made no fundamental changes in the character of the history. It is now more likely that Negroes will be mentioned as participants in the development of the country; heroes, achievements, inventions, are duly recorded. In significant ways, the history has remained untouched; the cultural conception of American history persists. In the past, Negroes, Oriental-Americans, and American Indians were educated in their native land as though they were no real part of it. In many ways, this is still true.

Life of African Americans

The people referred to today as African Americans were neither African nor American in the colonies. They had been involuntarily captured and transported from Africa to colonies throughout the Western Hemisphere for purposes of enslavement, or they were descended from those people. Although among the oldest American-born populations, they tragically no longer had a legitimate home (Davidson, 2008).

Although black family income is less than two-thirds that of whites, it has been responsible for sustaining a wide range of viable black institutions, including churches and schools, fraternal organizations, insurance firms, and various media enterprises. Along with black-owned businesses, black religious institutions are the most influential among African Americans. African Americans are overwhelmingly Protestant Christians and, as black bureaucratic organizations, the Baptist and Methodist churches are the largest and most ...