African American culture is sewn into the very fabric of American society. Indeed, to speak accurately of American culture and history or world history and culture one has to consider the enormous contributions of African people in the United States. The impact is particularly significant in the contemporary American context because African American culture is a major component of what constitutes being American. In this regard, Africa in America has meant that America is more than a European nation on Native American soil; it is a combination of many cultural influences that provide the special character of the American nation.  

African American culture is also African at its most elemental and fundamental level. From the sentence construction in Ebonics to musical appreciation, the legacy and heritage of thousands of years of human responses to the African environment have had an impact on the nearly four hundred years of the African American sojourn in North America.  

The atlas has proved to be a major reference work with interest for libraries, scholars, government workers, businesspeople, tourists, and individuals with an interest in presenting a portrait of the African American community. The original atlas was directed toward an American as well as a world audience. In revising the atlas we have endeavored to enliven the spatial representation of some of the most important events, personalities, and facts about African Americans with new maps, charts, and photographs.  

An atlas, however, is not an encyclopedia. One will not find every item of importance to African American history included here. We have selected information, events, and personalities that represent a great expanse of the cultural spectrum. Thus, we have been motivated by the desire to include the contributions of those individuals and groups that have had influence on the national and world character of the African American people. Yet we are the first to admit our limitations and our selectivity which could be questioned by any other historians and authors. Nevertheless, it is our sincere wish that the readers of this revised atlas will find that it not only contains the same warmth and information of the first edition but that it has an expanded set of interpretations, explanations, and a fresh statistical update of the conditions of the African American community.  

A basic purpose of the atlas is to provide detailed maps of information and events. As a reference work, this volume should be useful for those interested in a technical and historical guide to knowledge about how African Americans have organized their lives culturally socially, and economically In addition, we sought to give the reader a sense of the historical and cultural origin of African Americans. We have tried, in this edition, as in the first, to demonstrate that African Americans, though domiciled in the Americas, are not absolutely detached from the long history and cultural traditions of the continent of Africa itself.  

Therefore, we have carefully created maps and charts to give the reader a holistic view of the African American people. In doing this, we have avoided a strict chronological order, preferring to interweave themes into certain broad time lines. Furthermore, we have painstakingly integrated the maps, statistical information, and cultural data into narrative segments that should be easy to follow. Of course, we have tried not to repeat information found in the maps and charts in a word-for-word fashion. This type of redundancy serves no purpose for this atlas and we have avoided it as much as possible.  

The atlas makes a head-on confrontation with several issues that have plagued African and African American historiography In the first place, we have used the term African Americans to refer to American citizens whose racial, cultural, or ethnic backgrounds are historically rooted in the indigenous people of the African continent. Although nearly 75 percent of this population have racially or culturally plural backgrounds and more than 99 percent have ethnically plural backgrounds, we have followed the general practice in the United States of defining the African American population by its general African rather than its European or Native American elements. Furthermore, we have not tried to separate the Yoruba from the Ibo, or the Asante from the Ga, or the Congo from the Angola, inasmuch as we have recognized that these groups have been thoroughly amalgamated in the African American population.  

Historically, leading African Americans, regardless of color or degree of non-African genes, have defined themselves in this manner since the seventeenth century Had they defined themselves any other way it would not have mattered in a legal sense anyway Thus, in the United States the African population, with all of its mixture, has avoided the legal classifications of people by color as was recently done in South Africa and Brazil.  

Using the new Afrocentric paradigm as a guide, we have attempted to view Africa holistically, that is, as one giant interrelated sector rather than as sub-Saharan and north-of-the-Sahara parts of the same continent. It is no longer fashionable to think of Africa as a continent of separate, discrete regions where people of one region never interact with people of another.  

The European slave trade, a principal part of the past 500 years of the African experience, contributed to the view of Africa as segmented and disjointed. Separate ethnic and linguistic experiences exist and are accounted for in the new paradigm by also recognizing similarities in African myths, symbolism, and cosmologies.  

Nothing is so central to the African American experience as the spirituals, which we have chosen as the organizing principle, the structuring device for this atlas of African Americans because the spirituals have ennobled the experiences of the people in ways that no other social or artistic form has done. No image is more significant or more appropriate in connection with African American culture than these epic songs. They tell the story of Africans in America more poignantly than any prose. Consequently we have used them as keepers of the traditions.  

The first chapter is "I Got My Religion from Out of the Sun," and serves as the introductory statement. It examines some of the ancient origins of the people who are now African Americans. Four hundred years ago where were no African Americans; only Africans with various ethnic names and identities existed. This chapter looks at African origins of the human race as well as critical ancient historical sites. Chapter 2, "I Don't Care Where You Bury My Body," is about adventure. Africans have migrated all over the earth, often by force but also because of curiosity and a spirit of adventure that often govern human movements. The third chapter, "Dark Clouds A'risin," discusses the beginnings of the slave trade that was to transport millions of Africans from the continent of Africa to the Americas.  

The fourth chapter, "De Udder Worl Is Not Like Dis," examines the effect of the Great Enslavement on the African population. The fifth chapter, "And Before I'd Be a Slave," is a celebration of the resistance movement. The aim is to demonstrate the resistance in several areas of African American life. Chapter 6, "All My Troubles Will Soon Be Over With," shows the African American culture of resistance, the abolition movement, and the attack on the pro-slavery elements. Chapter 7, "My Lord Gwinter to Rain Down Fire," discusses the approach and waging of the Civil War. Chapter 8, "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," is dedicated to the emancipation and Reconstruction, and the struggle of African Americans against white prejudice.  

Chapter 9, " Now Ain't Them Hard Trials," is concerned with the wanton murder of many African Americans during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Lynching became a national disgrace as Ida B. Wells Barnett became a leading voice against the murder of black men. Chapter 10 is called "And Still We Rise" as a testament to the achievements of African Americans in many fields of endeavor. Chapter 11, "Great Day, Great Day, the Righteous Marching" discusses the Civil Rights Era when Martin Luther King Jr. rose to prominence and led the most consistent and persistent battles against the injustice in the American social and legal systems. This chapter also discusses the attendant political and organizational situations that textured the nature of the struggle. Chapter 12, "Before This Time Another Year," is a portrait of the cultural and historical elements that have gone into the creation of a resilient culture. Chapter 13, "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel," presents data on employment, literacy, poverty, identity, and mortality.  

Other features of this atlas that should aid readers in understanding the persistence of certain themes are the similarity of adventures and the preponderance of particular responses to society that are the biographical and thematic snapshots strategically placed to highlight given events and personalities. In general the chapters are presented in chronological order; however, biographical, photographic, and thematic snapshots that cross time lines occur as an African American improvisation. The aim of this feature is to provide an instant opportunity for comparison, reflection, and information. We have deliberately not included snapshots in every section but have done so in those cases where we think it would make good sense.  

Finally, we are pleased to be issuing this new edition during a time that we can truly say that the computer has lived up to its previous billing about accessing information. We are able to use the most up-to-date information for our book, to tap into the greatest source of data ever organized in the world, and to have fun representing the African American Atlas.  

• Back cover
• Table of Contents
• Other books by Molefi Kete Asante. 
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