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I compiled this for a church presentation, and decided to share it as a good summary overview of Black American history. It is drawn largely from two wikipedia articles, African American, and African American history, under the terms of the GNU Free Document License. This derivative document is also made available under the same terms, as specified in the license.

The ancestors of most African Americans were brought to North America as slaves. The first Black people brought to America came in 1619, a year before the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower. By 1860, 3.8 million slaves accounted for one third of the total population of the southern states. Contrary to popular belief, however, not all blacks in America were slaves. By the year 1860, well over 11% of the total black population in the U.S. was free.

In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the southern states at war with the North. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the US Constitution were ratified between 1865 and 1870. They outlawed slavery, granted blacks full citizenship and extended blacks the right to vote.

After the Civil War, Southern blacks began to vote, were elected to the United States Congress, held local public office, established schools and built towns and businesses. Seeking to return blacks to their subordinate status under slavery, white supremacists enacted new laws enforcing segregation. After its founding in 1867, the Ku Klux Klan became a power in the South and beyond. The Klan employed lynching, cross burnings and other forms of terrorism, violence and intimidation.

In 1905, W.E.B. DuBois and 28 other prominent African-Americans produced a manifesto calling for an end to racial discrimination, full civil liberties for African-Americans and recognition of human brotherhood. In 1909 a group of concerned European Americans joined them to create National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

During the first half of the 20th century, over 5 million African Americans moved from the South to northern cities, in hopes of finding better jobs and greater equality. In the 1930s, the concentration of blacks in urban areas led to the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. In the army, all-black units, such as the Tuskegee Airmen and U.S. 761st Tank Battalion proved their value in combat, leading to desegregation of all US Armed Forces by order of President Harry S. Truman in July of 1948.

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled against segregated schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. This decision led to the dismantling of legal segregation in all areas of southern life, from schools to restaurants to public restrooms. In 1955 Martin Luther King, Jr. led the bus boycott that ended segregated busing in Montgomery, and nine years later was given the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1964. A year earlier he had been a co-organizer and keynote speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, which brought more than 200,000 marchers to the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial.

The "Mississippi Freedom Summer" of 1964 brought thousands of idealistic youth, black and white, to the state to run "freedom schools," teaching basic literacy, history and civics to prospective black voters. The murder of a young black freedom rider, James Chaney, together with two of his white friends, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, created national outrage and brought about the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act struck down barriers to black enfranchisement and was the capstone to more than a decade of major civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and labor unions.

By this time, African Americans who questioned the effectiveness of nonviolent protest had gained a greater voice. More militant black leaders, such as Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam and Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panther Party, called for blacks to defend themselves, using violence if necessary. "Black Pride" and "Black Power" became watchwords in the 1970's, and black politicians began to gain mainstream acceptance in the 1980's, culminating in the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns by Jesse Jackson.

Although the 1990's were largely a period of racial optimism and increasing social integration, the nation's underlying racial tensions were revealed by events such as the beating of Rodney King, the trial of OJ Simpson, and the shooting of Amadou Diallo. Today, as we near the end of the first decade of the new millennium, blacks in America still face many challenges such as a high rate of incarceration, disproportionate poverty, and the widespread failure of quietly resegregated inner city schools.

Black American Contributions to America and the World:

From their earliest presence in North America, Africans and African Americans have contributed literature, art, agricultural skills, foods, clothing styles, music, language, social and technological innovation to American culture. The cultivation and use of many agricultural products in the U.S., such as yams, peanuts, rice, okra, sorghum, grits, watermelon, indigo dyes, and cotton, can be traced to African and African American influences.

African American music is one of the most pervasive cultural influences in the United States today. Blues, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, R&B, funk, rock-and-roll, soul, techno and many other contemporary American musical forms originated in black communities and have been incorporated into the popular music of almost every culture in the world. The names of famous and influential African American musicians are too numerous to mention.

African Americans have also had an important role in the world of dance, including art dancers Alvin Ailey and Bill T. Jones, tap dancers Bojangles, Sammy Davis, Savion Glover and the Nicholas Brothers, the "steppers" of black fraternities and sororities, and pop culture dance phenomenon Michael Jackson.

Famous African American writers and poets include Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou.

Famous black artists include Romare Bearden and Aminah Robinson.

Black medical pioneers include Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, an early pioneer of heart surgery, and Dr. Charles Drew, who developed the modern blood bank.

Famous black inventors include George Washington Carver, who created nearly 500 agricultural products, Jan Matzeliger, who developed the first machine to mass-produce shoes, Granville Woods, who had 35 patents to improve electric railway systems, Garrett Morgan, who developed the first automatic traffic signal and gas mask, Norbert Rilleux, who created the technique for converting sugar cane juice into white sugar crystals, Lewis Latimer, who created the inexpensive cotton-thread filament that made electric light bulbs practical, Frederick Jones, who patented the air conditioner, and Lloyd Quarterman, who worked on the creation of the atomic bomb.

In 1967, civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall became the first black Supreme Court Justice. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the nation's first black Governor. In 2001, General Colin Powell became the first black Secretary of State, and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, became the first black woman Secretary of State in 2005.

In 2008 Barack Obama became the first (self-identified) black American to be elected to the office of President of the United States of America.

http://kitoba.com/pedia/Black+History.html

Anyone with an iota of understanding would appreciate what know what your author, David Love, was going to say, and good on him for saying it.

The USA is miles ahead of Australia in many, many ways. Birthers et al are really
dragging your country's tale, while they should be holding it high in appreciation.