Black history shaped, and continues to shape the African
American experience in the United States. For most of United
States’ history, African American experience and culture developed
outside of mainstream American culture. Black history, its
contributions, and impact on the African American experience
resulted from the many influences of slavery and ongoing racial
discrimination throughout the United States.
Black history, in the forms of African culture, slavery, and
the civil rights movements shaped, and continues to shape, the
African American experience through religious practices, familial
and community systems, political position, and economic
behaviors.
For most of America’s history, legal and social discrimination
shaped and denied African Americans access to education and
literacy.
The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s is one of the
first and most important cultural movements in black history. As
one of the first major recognitions of African American music,
literature, and art, the works of African American authors, poets,
and musicians of the day rooted African American experience in
American culture and continues to shape it, even today.
In many ways the 1960s and 1970s was a period of black history
where African Americans made major strides toward equality while
simultaneously embracing their unique African and American
history.
In time, African culture enriched much of American music,
theater, and dance. African rhythms found their way into Christian
hymns and European marches. The banjo evolved from an African
stringed instrument.
Today, black Americans make significant contributions to every
segment of American society — business, arts and entertainment,
science, literature, and politics and law. Though issues of
discrimination remain, African Americans endure, achieve, and
lead.