Pío Pico, California's last governor under Mexican rule, was of mixed Spanish, Native American, and African descentJuana Briones de Miranda, the "founding mother of San Francisco", was of mixed-race with African ancestry
African American Californians orBlack Californians are residents of the state ofCalifornia who are ofAfricanancestry. According to 2019United States Census Bureau estimates, those identified solely as African American or Black constituted 5.8% or 2,282,144 residents in California. Including an additional 1.2% who identified as having partial African ancestry, the figure was 7.0% (2.8 million residents).[6][7] As of 2021, California has the largestmultiracial African American population by number in the United States.[8] African Americans are the fourth largest ethnic group in California afterHispanics,Whites, andAsians. Asians outnumbered African Americans in the 1980s.[9]
California also has a growingAfro-Caribbean and African immigrant population to the United States. Most African immigrants in California come fromNigeria,Ethiopia, andEritrea. ManyEthiopians live inLittle Ethiopia in West Los Angeles. California has one of the highest concentrations of black Africans in theWestern United States. 41,249Afro-Asians live in California.[13] There is aBlaxican community in California.[14] There is also a growing Blaxican population in Los Angeles.[15] California claimed 113,255 African-born residents in 2000. The majority came from Ethiopia, Nigeria, andSouth Africa.[16] There is also a sizableJamaican,Haitian, Caribbean, Afro-Latino, andBelizean population in California.[17] There is also a small Bahamian, Barbadian, Bermudan, British West Indian, Dutch West Indian, and Trinidadian population in California.[17] There is a largeGarifuna community in Southern California.[18]
The Black population in California has been declining since 2016, and moving out of the state.[23]Gentrification in California has caused some African Americans in California to become homeless and has pushed them out of historical urban centers like Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and into new cheaper suburban regions, like East Contra Costa, Inland Empire, and Central Valley.[24] For example, many blacks from Los Angeles have moved to desert areas such asPalmdale andLancaster in the 1990s. The black population in Los Angeles County has been rapidly declining.[25] The black population has also declined in San Francisco.[26] African Americans have the second highestpoverty rate in California, after Hispanics.[27] This has caused many blacks from California to move back to cities in theSouthern United States, such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Birmingham, Memphis, San Antonio and Jackson.[28][29]
The black population has decreased in many neighborhoods and cities in California. Many areas such as Compton, Inglewood, and Watts that were once predominately black are now predominately Latino. Many Mexicans and Central Americans have displaced them in their historical areas.[30][31][32] In 2019, African Americans were more likely to become homeless in California.[33]
There is also a black foreign born population from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in California. 3% of black people in California are noncitizens, and 4% are naturalized immigrants. African Americans mainly live in Los Angeles, theEast Bay of theSan Francisco Bay Area andSacramento.[34] Solano County has the highest black percentage by county.[35] Cities with the largest black population in the San Francisco Bay Area are African Americans in the Bay Area areOakland,Vallejo,Antioch,Suisun City andRichmond.[36]
Before the arrival of European colonists and African slaves, theIndigenous peoples of California mainly inhabited the region. Native Americans were initially enslaved before Africans were brought to the area.[38]
People of African descent first appeared in California fromMexico due to theSpanish conquest.[40][41] Spanish soldiers, priests, and settlers brought black slaves and free blacks into the state in the 18th-century.[42] The settlers and escort soldiers who founded the towns ofSan José de Guadalupe (San Jose),Yerba Buena (San Francisco), Monterey, San Diego, and La Reina de Los Ángeles (Los Angeles) were primarilymestizo and of mixed Negro and Native American ancestry from the province ofSonora y Sinaloa in Mexico. There were also manymulattoes (part black, part Spanish) inAlta California.[43]
Influential people of African ancestry were among the earliest California settlers and landowners.[44]Pío Pico was aCalifornio politician, ranchero, and entrepreneur of mixed-race with African ancestry, he had served as the last governor ofAlta California under Mexican rule (from 1845 until 1846).[45]Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio business woman of mixed-race with African ancestry, she is considered the "Founding Mother ofSan Francisco", as an early settler of Yerba Buena (now San Francisco).[46]William Leidesdorff was black and multi-racial, he was one another founder of San Francisco.[47]
After the discovery ofgold in California on January 24, 1848, African Americans in search of wealth, and freedom arrived in the state during theCalifornia gold rush seeking their own gold discoveries.[48][49] Additionally,white Southerners brought black slaves into the California mines starting in 1849, and were primarily migrating from Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas.[50] TheSweet Vengeance Mine was a gold mine inBrowns Valley, discovered by African American miners during the gold rush.[51]Moses Rodgers was considered one of the best miners in the state.[52]
Many of the earliest African Americans in the state held theCalifornia State Convention of Colored Citizens, a series ofcolored convention events active from 1855 to 1902. At the conventions they had elected delegates from the various counties and would discuss topics like slavery, public education, and voting rights.[58][59]
Archy Lee had been formerly enslaved African American and he was part of a series of notable 19th-century court cases that helped defined civil rights in the state by 1858.[60][61]Edward Duplex was the first Black mayor in California, elected to office inWheatland in 1888.[62][63]
The firstcensus recorded of African Americans in California appeared in 1850 with 962 people, and in 1860 with 4,086 people.[64] Then, in 1910 the number rose to 22,000.[65]
BeforeWorld War II, African Americans totaled to less than one percent of California's population.[65] The California population of African Americans grew slowly, alongside other minorities, with only 21,645 African American residents in 1910 compared to 2 million white residents.[71] Post-World War II, African Americans boosted their population enormously in California.[65]
Between the late-1940s until the early-1960s in San Francisco and Los Angeles, a new style ofjazz was developed primarily by African Americans calledWest Coast jazz.[72]
Your Black Muslim Bakery was a chain of bakeries opened byYusuf Bey in 1968 in Santa Barbara, and moved headquarters in 1971 to Oakland;[73] it had been a model ofAfrican American economic self-sufficiency but was later linked tophysical and sexual abuse, welfare fraud, and murder which forced its closure on August 9, 2007.[74][75]
In 1991,Rodney King, an African American, was the victim of police brutality when he was beaten by threeLos Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers during his arrest.[76][77][78] The Rodney King beating was caught on videotape, and after the police acquittal verdict the event was followed by the1992 Los Angeles riots.[79] After the 1992 riots some 50 people were murdered, an estimated 2,000 people were injured and 8,000 people were arrested.[80]
Affirmative action is a set of laws, policies, guidelines, and administrative practices "intended to end and correct the effects of a specific form of discrimination".[81] In November 1996,affirmative action was abolished throughProposition 209 by California lawmakers.[82]
In the year 2000, California claimed 113,255 African immigrants in state, with the San Francisco Bay Area housing around 29,930 black immigrants. Most of the African immigrants came fromEthiopia. The next largest numbers were fromNigeria,Egypt, andSouth Africa. Approximately 45,000 Ethiopians and 6,000 Eritreans live in Los Angeles.[83] California is a destination for Egyptian and South African immigrants.[84]
In the 2010s, California was anet loser of black migration for the first time in three decades. Most exiting California blacks are returning to Texas and theAtlanta metropolitan area.[85] In 2018, there are Black neighborhoods and cities with Black populations surpassing 15% in Southern California like in Compton, South Los Angeles and Inglewood, and inNorthern California likeStockton,[86]Oakland, andVallejo.[87]Oakland has been noted for being a center of Northern California's black population, with it being at least 25% black as of 2020. Many African Americans who settled in California, likewise in Oakland, worked on the railroad in Oakland and East Bay areas in the early-to-mid 1900s.[88]
In 2020, anti-Blackhate crimes in California has increased.[89][90][91][92] In 2020–2022, theCOVID-19 deaths rose for African Americans in California, which had the lowest vaccination rates in the state.[93][94][95]
African American residents of California were first mentioned in 1919 by Black Californian historianDelilah Beasley, and later on Rudolph Lapp, others.[65] More information appeared in journals such asThe Journal of Negro History andThe Journal of African American History. (3)[98]
ThePhoenixonian Institute of San Jose was the first high school for African American students in the state, it opened in 1861 as a private boarding school and closed in the mid-1870s when the state public schools were no longer segregated.[108] The funding and support for the Phoenixonian Institute initially came from theCalifornia State Convention of Colored Citizens and the African American community on theWest Coast.[108]
In 1874, theCalifornia Supreme Court established the notion of "separate but equal" schools inWard v. Flood.[109] African American students in lower education increased from 24 pupils in 1870, to 183 pupils by the late 19th-century; and they ranked the highest performing students inliteracy subjects in 1900.[71]
Black Californians have the highest death rates from breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer.[112] In 2022, Blacks in California havedied at a higher rate than other ethnic groups in from COVID-19 and had the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates.[113] Blacks in California are more prone toobesity.[114]Homicide rates are higher for African Americans in California.[115]
Blacks in California are more likely to experiencedepression, psychological distress and other mental health conditions.[116][117][118] Thesuicide rate is higher for Black Californians than white Californians.[119][120][121]
California was the first state to consider reparations for Black residents, and the California Reparations Task Force was formed in order to present the state legislature its recommendations.[122] Economists tell the state that Black Californians could be owed $800 billion in reparations. The $800bn is more than 2.5 times California's annual budget of $300 billion The statewide estimate includes $246 billion in compensation for eligible Black Californians whose neighborhoods were aggressively policed and prosecuted in the "war on drugs" from 1970 to 2020. That would be nearly $125,000 for each person who qualifies. Economists also included $569 billion in reparations for the discriminatory practice of redlining in housing loans. The compensation would be about $223,000 per eligible resident who lived in California from 1933 to 1977.[123]
According to a 2023 poll from theUC Berkeley, the majority of California voters oppose cash reparations as a form of compensation to residents of the state who are the descendants of enslaved African Americans.[124]
82% of African American voters are registered as Democrats in 2016.[125]Kamala Harris is the first African American female Vice President, and she was born and raised in California.[126]
86% of African American in California voted for Kamala Harris in an exit poll in 2024.[127] 82% of African Americans in California voted forJoe Biden in anexit poll in 2020.[128][129] 88% of African Americans in California voted forHillary Clinton in 2016.[130][131]
In 2021, the total number of hate crime events reported is the sixth-highest-ever-recorded, and the highest since the aftermath of September 11, 2001.[132] According to a study by theCalifornia Department of Justice (DOJ), anti-Black hate crimes from 2021 to 2022 increased in the state by 27%; with all-over hate crimes also increasing by 20%.[132][133]
Blacks have higher arrest rates than white people in California's 58 counties.[134] African Americans are often victims ofracial profiling in California.[135]
California became the first state to ban discrimination based on naturalBlack hair and hairstyles. The bill was signed into law byGavin Newsom in 2019.[136]
This is adynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help byediting the page to add missing items, with references toreliable sources.
^Bradford, Eric. "Free African American Population in the U.S.: 1790-1860."NCpedia Home Page | NCpedia. Ncpedia, 2008.
^abcdeMoore, Shirley Ann Wilson (January 1, 1996). "African Americans in California: A Brief Historiography".California History.75 (3):194–197.doi:10.2307/25177592.JSTOR25177592.
^Franklin, V. P. (January 1, 2006). "Introduction: The African American Experience in the Western States".The Journal of African American History.91 (1):1–3.doi:10.1086/JAAHv91n1p1.JSTOR20064043.S2CID149288451.
^"Serious Erosion of African-American Enrollment in California Higher Education".The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (3): 11. January 1, 1994.doi:10.2307/2963084.JSTOR2963084.
"Afro-Latinos".Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail (U.S. National Park Service). November 10, 2015. Archived fromthe original on July 12, 2019. RetrievedDecember 9, 2023.
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