See also: Black Southerners

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Oldest African American church located in Georgia
African Americans picking cotton in Georgia, 1907

African-American Georgians are residents of the U.S. state of Georgia who are of African American ancestry. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, African Americans were 31.2% of the state's population.[4] Georgia has the second largest African American population in the United States following Texas.[5] Georgia also has a gullah community.[6] African slaves were brought to Georgia during the slave trade.[7]

History

Part of a series on the
History of the
State of Georgia
flag Georgia (U.S. state) portal
African American slaves in 1850
See also: History of Georgia (U.S. state)

Spanish colonists brought African slaves to Georgia in 1526.[8] African slaves imported to Georgia primarily came from Angola, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia.[9] Slaves mostly worked on cotton and rice plantations.[10][11] By the mid-19th century the majority of white people in Georgia, like most White Southerners, had come to view slavery as economically indispensable to their society. Georgia, with the largest number plantations of any state in the Southern United States, had in many respects come to epitomize plantation culture. When the American Civil War started in 1861, most white people in the South joined in the defense of the Confederate States of America (Confederacy), which the state Georgia had helped to create.[12]

In 1912, White people drove out every black resident in Forsyth County.[13]

Beginning in the 1890s, Georgia passed a wide variety of Jim Crow laws that mandated racial segregation and racial separation for white people in public facilities and effectively codified the region's tradition of white supremacy.[14] Lynching African Americans was also common in Georgia. White mobs would lynch black men.[15]

Georgia became a slave state in 1751.[16] Initially, Georgia was the only British colony in the United States to try to ban slavery.[17]

Civil War

The Civil War happened in Georgia.[18] African American soldiers fought the Civil War in Georgia.[19]

Lynching

Main article: Lynching in the United States

Many black men were lynched by white mobs in Georgia.[15]

Historically black colleges and universities

Georgia is the home of ten historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs): Albany State University, Clark Atlanta University, Fort Valley State University, Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Morris Brown College, Paine College, Savannah State University, and Spelman College.[20]

Politics

The historically Republican state of Georgia flipped blue in the 2020 Presidential Election and the 2021 U.S. Senate runoffs, in part, due to high Black voter turnout. Joe Biden won the Black vote in Georgia in a 2020 exit poll with 88% of Black Georgians voting for Biden.[21][22][23]

This shift from red to purple is in part, due to young, college-educated Black Americans, who largely vote for Democrats, moving from Northern and Western regions of the country to the South, in a phenomenon often referred to as the New Great Migration. [24]

Notable people

Ciara

Civil Rights

Politics

  • Clarence Thomas (born 1948)[27]
  • Raphael Warnock (born 1969), came to prominence for his activism as a pastor in Atlanta. Warnock is the first African American to represent Georgia in the Senate and the first Black Democrat to be elected to the Senate by a former state of the Confederacy.[28]
  • Stacey Abrams (born 1973), two-time Democratic candidate for governor was born in Madison, Wisconsin, but was raised in Gulfport, Mississippi. Moved with her family to Atlanta in 1989.[29]

Music

Playboi Carti

Sport

Religious

Film and television

  • Chris Tucker (born 1971)
  • Donald Glover (born 1983), comedian, actor, rapper, writer, director, and producer who created the acclaimed comedy-drama Atlanta along with his brother Stephen.
  • Raven-Symoné (born 1985)
  • Spike Lee born 1957), born in Atlanta, moved with his family to Brooklyn during childhood. Returned to Atlanta to attend Morehouse College.

Writing

See also

References

  1. ^ "Georgia Black Population". blackdemographics.com. Archived from the original on July 25, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2022.
  2. ^ "Monday Mapday: The Distribution of Georgia's Black, Non-Hispanic Residents". February 17, 2020. Archived from the original on December 1, 2022. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  3. ^ "Religious Landscape Study". Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  4. ^ "Georgia QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau". Quickfacts.census.gov. 2011. Archived from the original on June 22, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  5. ^ "The Growing Diversity of Black America". March 25, 2021. Archived from the original on July 24, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2022.
  6. ^ "Gullah History | Gullah Culture". Archived from the original on October 8, 2022. Retrieved October 8, 2022.
  7. ^ "Slavery in Antebellum Georgia".
  8. ^ "Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon". Today in Georgia History. July 22, 2021. Archived from the original on November 13, 2021. Retrieved November 13, 2021.
  9. ^ "Slavery in Colonial Georgia". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on April 27, 2020. Retrieved March 11, 2020.
  10. ^ "A New Encounter: Black Slaves in Georgia". Georgia Historical Society. Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved July 9, 2022.
  11. ^ "Georgia - Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction | Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on June 23, 2021. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
  12. ^ "Georgia - Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction | Britannica". Archived from the original on June 23, 2021. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
  13. ^ "In 1912, This Georgia County Drove Out Every Black Resident | HISTORY". August 20, 2019. Archived from the original on January 26, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  14. ^ "Segregation". Archived from the original on January 26, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  15. ^ a b "Lynching".
  16. ^ "Pre-Revolutionary Slavery - Georgia Historical Society". August 1, 2013.
  17. ^ "Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730–1775".
  18. ^ "Civil War in Georgia".
  19. ^ "Black Troops in Civil War Georgia".
  20. ^ "Historically Black Colleges and Universities Initiative". Archived from the original on October 14, 2022. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  21. ^ Mayes, Brittany; Shapiro, Leslie; Alcantara, Chris; Clement, Scott; Guskin, Emily (November 9, 2020) [2020-11-02]. "Exit poll results and analysis for the 2020 presidential election". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. ISSN 0190-8286. OCLC 1330888409. Archived from the original on December 11, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2022.
  22. ^ "Most Georgia voters say Senate runoff elections conducted fairly, CNN exit poll shows". CNN. January 5, 2021. Archived from the original on October 13, 2022. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  23. ^ "SNBC News Exit Poll: Black, liberal voters boost Warnock to projected Senate win in Georgia". NBC News. January 6, 2021. Archived from the original on October 13, 2022. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  24. ^ "A 'New Great Migration' is bringing Black Americans back to the South".
  25. ^ "Georgia: Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)". Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  26. ^ Times, John Pophamspecial To the New York (January 12, 1949). "Georgians Freed in Negro's Killing; Two on Jury Testify for the Defense; Georgians Freed in Negro's Killing; Two on Jury Testify for the Defense". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 16, 2023.
  27. ^ "Clarence Thomas". Oyez. Archived from the original on December 15, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
  28. ^ "U.S. Senate: U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock". Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  29. ^ "Georgia's Daring Heroine on a Secret Mission". Archived from the original on December 22, 2017. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  30. ^ "Kanye West Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  31. ^ "Cover Story: The Secret Life of Playboi Carti". Archived from the original on December 26, 2021. Retrieved August 8, 2021.
  32. ^ "8-time All-Star Dwight Howard pondering retirement: 'No teams want to allow me to play'". October 16, 2022. Archived from the original on October 18, 2022. Retrieved October 18, 2022.
  33. ^ "Herschel Walker". Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  34. ^ "Biography - the Official Licensing Website of Jackie Robinson". Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  35. ^ Holden, Stephen (March 22, 2002). "FILM REVIEW; Jim Brown as Football Legend, Sex Symbol and Husband". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  36. ^ "Legendary sixth man Lou Williams officially announces retirement". NBC Sports. June 18, 2023.

Further reading

  • Bacote, Clarence A. "Some aspects of negro life in Georgia, 1880-1908." Journal of Negro History 43.3 (1958): 186–213. online
  • Bacote, Clarence A. "Negro proscriptions, protests, and proposed solutions in Georgia, 1880-1908." Journal of Southern History 25.4 (1959): 471–498. online
  • Bernd, Joseph L. "White supremacy and the disfranchisement of Blacks in Georgia, 1946." Georgia Historical Quarterly 66.4 (1982): 492–513. online
  • Blassingame, John W. "Before the Ghetto: The Making of the Black Community in Savannah, Georgia, 1865-1880." Journal of Social History 6#4 (1973), pp. 463–88. ]online
  • Dittmer, John. Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (University of Illinois Press, 1980).
  • Drago, Edmund L. Black politicians and reconstruction in Georgia: A splendid failure (University of Georgia Press, 1992) online.
  • Fischer, David Hackett. African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals (Simon & Schuster, 2022), ch 5. before 1860.
  • Flynn Jr, Charles L. White land, Black labor: Caste and class in late nineteenth-century Georgia (LSU Press, 1999).
  • Grant, Donald Lee. The way it was in the South: The Black experience in Georgia (University of Georgia Press, 2001).
  • Grantham, Dewey W. "Georgia Politics and the Disfranchisement of the Negro." Georgia Historical Quarterly 32.1 (1948): 1-21. online
  • Hornsby, Alton. "Black Public Education in Atlanta, Georgia, 1954-1973: From Segregation to Segregation." Journal of Negro History 76#1 (1991), pp. 21–47. online
  • Inscoe, John C., ed. Georgia in Black and White: Explorations in Race Relations of a Southern State, 1865-1950 (University of Georgia Press, 2009).
  • Jones, Jacqueline. Soldiers of light and love: Northern teachers and Georgia Blacks, 1865-1873 (University of Georgia Press, 1992) online.
  • Meier, August, and David Lewis. "History of the Negro upper class in Atlanta, Georgia, 1890-1958." Journal of Negro Education 28.2 (1959): 128–139. online
  • Matthews, John M. "Black Newspapermen and the Black Community in Georgia, 1890-1930." Georgia Historical Quarterly 68#3 (1984), pp. 356–81. online
  • Range, Willard. The rise and progress of Negro colleges in Georgia, 1865-1949 (University of Georgia Press, 2009).
  • Wood, Betty. Slavery In Colonial Georgia, 1730–1775 (2007) online
  • Wood, Betty. Women's Work, Men's Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia, 1750-1830 (1995) excerpt.

External links