African American in the context of "Barack Obama"

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve African American slavery, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North.

Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven Southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets within its borders. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy asserted control over a third of the US population in eleven states. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued.

Jazz Dance is a performance dance and style that arose in the United States in the early 20th century. Jazz Dance may allude to vernacular Jazz, Broadway or dramatic Jazz. The two types expand on African American vernacular styles of dance that arose with Jazz Music. Vernacular dance refers to dance forms that emerge from everyday life and cultural practices of a specific community, often reflecting the social, cultural, and historical contexts of that community. In the context of African American culture, vernacular dance encompasses styles that developed organically within African American communities, influenced by African traditions, European dance forms, and the unique experiences of African Americans in the United States.

Vernacular Jazz Dance incorporates ragtime moves, Charleston, Lindy hop and mambo. Popular vernacular Jazz Dance performers include The Whitman Sisters, Florence Mills, Ethel Waters, Al Minns and Leon James, Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Dawn Hampton, and Katherine Dunham. Dramatic Jazz Dance performed on the show stage was promoted by Jack Cole, Bob Fosse, Eugene Louis Faccuito, and Gus Giordano.

The 1995 Okinawa rape incident (Japanese: 沖縄米兵少女暴行事件) occurred on September 4, 1995, when three U.S. servicemen, 22-year-old U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Gill, 21-year-old U.S. Marines Rodrico Harp, and 20-year-old Kendrick Ledet, all serving at Camp Hansen in Okinawa Island, rented a van and kidnapped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl. Gill beat her, after the other two duct-taped her eyes and mouth shut, and bound her hands. Gill and Harp then raped her, while Ledet—who was described in news reports at the time as being small framed in school—claimed he only pretended to do so due to fear of Gill.

The offenders were tried and convicted in Japanese court by Japanese law, in accordance with the U.S.–Japan Status of Forces Agreement. The families of the defendants initially claimed that Japanese officials had racially discriminated against the men because they were all African American and coerced confessions from them, but later retracted the claims. The incident led to further debate over the continued presence of U.S. forces in Japan among Okinawans. As a result of this case, governments on both sides would seek ways to reduce Okinawa's base burden, and in the decades following various measures would be enacted to prevent sexual crimes from happening, along with Japan increasing prison lengths for rape and making it so prosecutors can bring offenders to justice even if charges are not brought by the victim.

The Chicago metropolitan area, also called Chicagoland, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwest. Encompassing 10,286 square mi (28,120 km), the metropolitan area contains the City of Chicago along with its surrounding suburbs, satellite cities, and hinterland, spanning 13 counties across northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. The MSA had a 2020 census population of 9,618,502, and the combined statistical area, which spans 19 counties and extends into southeast Wisconsin, had a population of nearly 10 million. The Chicago area is the third-largest metropolitan area in the United States, the fourth-largest in North America (after Mexico City, New York City, and Los Angeles), and the largest in the Great Lakes megalopolis. Its urban area is the 50th-largest in the world.

According to the 2020 census, Chicagoland's population is approaching 10 million. The metropolitan area has seen a substantial increase of Latin American residents on top of its already large Latino population, and the Asian American population also increased. The metro area has a large number of White, Black, Latino, Asian, and Arab American residents, and also has Native American residents. The Chicago metropolitan area has about 3 percent of the U.S. population.

40°47′02″N 73°58′08″W / 40.784002°N 73.968892°W / 40.784002; -73.968892

Seneca Village was a 19th-century settlement of mostly African American landowners in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, within what would become present-day Central Park. The settlement was located near the current Upper West Side neighborhood, approximately bounded by Central Park West and the axes of 82nd Street, 89th Street, and Seventh Avenue, had they been constructed through the park.

African Americans constitute one of the longer-running ethnic presences in New York City, home to the largest urban African American population, and the world's largest Black population of any city outside Africa, by a significant margin. As of the 2010 census, the number of African Americans residing in New York City was over 2 million. The highest concentration of African Americans are in Brooklyn, Harlem, Queens, and The Bronx. New York City is also home to the highest number of immigrants from the Caribbean.

Since the earlier part of the 19th century, there has been a large presence of African Americans in New York City. Early Black communities were created after the state's final abolition of slavery in 1827. The metropolis quickly became home to one of the most sizeable populations of emancipated African Americans. But Blacks did not receive equal voting rights in New York until the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution in 1870. New York City and other northern cities saw a sharp rise in their Black populations in the wake of Jim Crow in the South. In the early 1900s, many African Americans moved to Harlem, due to a number of factors, including many Black migrants relocating from the South to the North. But the demographic shift would change once again in the 20th century. In 1936, overcrowding in Harlem caused scores of African Americans to leave and move to Bedford-Stuyvesant, which eventually became the second largest Black community in New York City.

The March on Washington for Jobs and education (commonly known as the March on Washington or the Great March on Washington) was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march, several popular singers of the time, including Mahalia Jackson and Marian Anderson, performed and many of the movement's leaders gave speeches. The most notable speech came from the final speaker, Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, as he delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to legalized racism and racial segregation.

The march was organized by Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph, who built an alliance of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations that came together under the banner of "jobs and freedom." Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000, but the most widely cited estimate is 250,000 people. Observers estimated that 75–80% of the marchers were black. The march was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history. Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, was the most integral and highest-ranking white organizer of the march.

Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat. The population was 21,573 at the 2020 census. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vicksburg was built by French colonists in 1719. The outpost withstood an attack from the native Natchez people. It was incorporated as Vicksburg in 1825 after Methodist missionary Newitt Vick. The area that is now Vicksburg was long occupied by the Natchez as part of their historical territory along the Mississippi. The first Europeans who settled the area were French colonists who built Fort Saint Pierre in 1719 on the high bluffs overlooking the Yazoo River at present-day Redwood. They conducted fur trading with the Natchez and others, and started plantations. During the American Civil War, it was a key Confederate river-port, and its July 1863 surrender to Ulysses S. Grant, along with the concurrent Battle of Gettysburg, marked the turning-point of the war.

After the war came the Reconstruction era and then a violent return to power by white supremacists in 1874 and 1875, including the Vicksburg massacre. Today, Vicksburg's population is majority African American. The city is home to three large installations of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which has often been involved in local flood control.

A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write. Literacy tests have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants.

Between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were used as an effective tool for disenfranchising African Americans in the Southern United States. Literacy tests were typically administered by white clerks who could pass or fail a person arbitrarily. Illiterate whites were often permitted to vote without taking these literacy tests because of racial grandfather clauses written into legislation.