Africa to America: From the Middle Passage Through the 1930s (African American History and Culture)

Publication Date: August 15, 2010 | Series: African American History and Culture At the beginning of the 21st centruy, the United State counted more than 36 million African Americans among it citizens. At different times in American history a variety of terms have been used to refer to the people now most ofter identified as African American or black, including "Afro-American," "Negro," and "Colored," as well as an execrable list of derisive epithets that are indicative of the ignorance and intolerance African Americans encountered in their long struggle for freedom and full participation in American political, economic, social, and cultural life. The African American journey through history has been often tragic, laden with frustration, and fraught with peril, but also sustained by heroism, determination, and triumph. The roots of most Africian Americans extend back far beyond the plantations of colonial America and the republic in the first half of 19th century to the rich cultures of Western Africa. Sophisticated, thriving empires dating from at least the Ghana in about 500 CE developed from wealth centred on gold and salt mines. The famed city of Timbuktu originated around 1100 as a trading centre and developed into a bastion of Islamic society. Later, the great cultures of the Mali, Songhai, and Hausa city-states arose largely in accordance with their military strength. To the south, on the Guinea Coast major empires such as the Asante and the Oyo bolstered their power thrught trade with Europeans.