AFRICA AMERICANS

AFRICA AMERICANS
February 2009
All previous web alerts can be found at:
http://france.usembassy.gov/politics-alert.html


AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH
Library of Congress, February 2009
http://www.loc.gov/law/help/commemorative-observations/african-american.php
National African American History Month had its origins in 1915 when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (“ASALH”). Through this organization Dr. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. Dr. Woodson selected the week in February that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two key figures in the history of African Americans.

FREE AT LAST: THE U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, January 2009
http://www.america.gov/publications/books-content/free-at-last.html
This publication recounts how African-American slaves and their descendants struggled to win — both in law and in practice — the civil rights enjoyed by other Americans. It is a story of dignified persistence and struggle, a story that produced great heroes and heroines, and one that ultimately succeeded by forcing Americans to confront squarely the shameful gap between their universal principles of equality and justice and the inequality, injustice, and oppression faced by millions of their fellow citizens


ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A LEGACY OF FREEDOM

U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, 2008
http://www.america.gov/publications/books/lincoln.html
The year 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. president often considered the greatest of this country’s leaders. Americans’ reverence for Lincoln began with his tragic death by assassination in 1865, at the end of a brutal civil war in which 623,000 men died, the American Union withstood its greatest test, and slavery was banished. And his hallowed place in the iconography of America continues.

AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES
The Migration Policy Institute, February 2009
http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?ID=719
The number of African immigrants in the United States grew 40-fold between 1960 and 2007, from 35,355 to 1.4 million. Most of this growth has taken place since 1990.
Compared to other immigrants, the African born tend to be highly educated and speak English well. However, they are also more likely not to be naturalized US citizens than other immigrants.

A RELIGIOUS PORTRAIT OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, January 30, 2009
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=389
Compared with other racial and ethnic groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation, with fully 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Latinos also report affiliating with a religion at a similarly high rate of 85%; among the public overall, 83% are affiliated with a religion.