In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

C Ch ha ap pt te er r 6 6 Black American Geographies: A Perspective EUGENE L. TETTEY-FIO INTRODUCTION Until recently, blacks constituted the largest minority population in America. The U.S. Census 2000 reported about 34 million blacks and approximately 35 million Latinos. Even though Latinos have surpassed blacks as the largest minority group, the token minority status of blacks remains in social focus. This is partly the result of the better assimilation of other minority groups and the persistence of Dubois’ “color line” in the United States. Highly segregated, inner city black American neighborhoods have become symptomatic of all the negative perceptions of life in the U.S. Pervasive poverty, persistent low-income jobs, infrastructure deficiency, and above average crime rates are a few of the characteristics of neighborhoods that many blacks inhabit. Black spatial clusters are often islands of social isolation and physical and “moral” decay. These clusters were formed in response to historical , social, economic and political processes. Since 1970, however, improvements in black class status and a rapid increase in black suburbanization have contributed to changes in U.S. black geographies. This chapter examines the processes that have controlled and channeled black settlements in America from a historical perspective, as well as in terms of more recent trends and geographic patterns emerging on urban and regional bases. Despite white resistance, African Americans have persisted in the search for opportuniidentity and ethnicity. As will be shown in future chapters, this and other ethnic characteristics have resulted in The history of U.S. black settlements has involved black migrations in response to changes in the American political economy and the motivation of black people to improve their unequal living conditions with white Americans. This chapter briefly examines the geographic distributions of blacks in specific time periods of American history and explains the processes that underlie those distributions. Particular attention is paid to the migrations and the roles of institutions in creating particular black geographies. In addition to examining the creation of the national black ghetto system associated with the Great Migration and white institutional responses to the growing number of new black migrants to northern cities, the change in black socioeconomic status and increased black suburbanization are discussed. The chapter closes with a brief discussion of two important black trends at the end of the 20th century: increasing reverse migration and black ethnic diversity. HISTORY OF BLACK SETTLEMENT AND MOVEMENT Africans were among the first non-indigenous permanent settlers of what is now the U.S. They were among the settlers who came to America, 1607–1700. They came initially as indentured servants and as refugees ties to create better living conditions in new places. That struggle has become part of African-American selfAfrican -American cultural landscapes within the boundaries of racial geography created by white power. 70 Eugene L. Tettey-Fio from Spanish colonies. However, the need for hard physical labor to work in subtropical and tropical conditions resulted in slavery. Virginia’s slave code of 1705 ushered blacks into slavery in colonial America. Soon after, Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia, the Middle colonies and New England replicated Virginia’s code. The first African slaves shipped across the Atlantic Ocean arrived in North America in the early 17th century. By 1650 there were 1,600 blacks in America, about three percent of the estimated population of the colonies. Over all, an estimated 10 million slaves were brought to the Americas (Farley and Allen, 1987). Forced black migration to America resulted in 757,208 (19.2 percent) people of African descent by 1776 of which 697,624 (92.1 percent) were slaves. The population of free blacks had reached 25,000 by 1776 and 60,000 by 1790. In 1787 the U.S. Constitution was adopted and the Free African Society was founded, a precursor to the first independent black church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1790, natural increase accounted more for black population growth than importation and the percentage of foreign-born blacks was small by the end of the 18th century. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 dashed any hope for black emancipation because it dramatically increased the demand for slaves. Prior to the gin, one-half of the labor required to make cotton ready for market was in separation of the hull and seed (the other half was in planting and harvesting). The gin dramatically reduced the labor required after harvest and freed additional slaves for planting and harvesting. At the...

Share