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InAfrican-American history, thepost–civil rights era is defined as the time period in the United States since Congressional passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1964, theVoting Rights Act of 1965, and theFair Housing Act of 1968, major federal legislation that ended legal segregation, gained federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration and electoral practices in states or areas with a history of discriminatory practices, and ended discrimination in the renting and buying of housing.

Politically,African Americans have made substantial strides in the post–civil rights era. Civil rights leaderJesse Jackson ran for theDemocratic Party's presidential nomination in1984 and1988, attracting more African Americans into politics and unprecedented support and leverage for people of colour in politics. In 2008,Barack Obama waselected as the firstPresident of the United States of African descent.

In the same period, African Americans have suffered disproportionate unemployment rates following industrial and corporate restructuring, with a rate of poverty in the 21st century that is equal to that in the 1960s. African Americans have the highest rates of incarceration of any minority group, especially in thesouthern states of the formerConfederacy.

On February 21, 1965,Malcolm X, an African-American rights activist with national and international prominence, was shot and killed in New York City.^[1]

1966 was the last year of publication ofThe Negro Motorist Green Book, informally known as "The Green Book". The book provided advice to African-American travelers, during years of legal segregation and overt discrimination, about places where they could stay, get gas, and eat while traveling cross-country.^[2] For example, in 1956 only threeNew Hampshire motels served African Americans, and most motels and hotels in the South discriminated by race.^[3] After the passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1964, theGreen Book largely became obsolete.^[2]

In 1966–1967, the African-American cultural holidayKwanzaa was first celebrated.^[4] Kwanzaa was founded byMaulana Karenga as aPan-Africanist cultural and racial-identity event, as an alternative to cultural events of the dominant society such as Christmas and Hanukkah.^[5]

The April 1968assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. led to protests andriots in multiple U.S. cities, primarily in Black-majority communities. Beginning in 1971,Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states. AU.S. federal holiday was established in King's name in 1986. Since his death,hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honour. King has become a national icon in the history ofAmerican liberalism andAmerican progressivism.^[6]

In May 1969, anarmed standoff at two educational institutions in North Carolina between students and the National Guard left two people dead.^[7] Hundreds of students and soldiers were involved.^[8]

On June 13, 1969, the founder of theFive-Percent Nation,Clarence 13X, was shot dead in NYC.^[9] The Five-Percent Nation was originally a spin-off group from the Nation of Islam.^[10] The Five-Percent Nation hashad a significant influence upon New York based hip-hop artists in the decades since its founding.^[11]

On December 4, 1969,Fred Hampton, a prominentBlack Panther activist, was murdered by police while sleeping in Chicago.^[12]

On April 8, 1970, the nomination ofG. Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court was defeated by the U.S. Senate, in part because of his history of racist remarks and actions. On May 27, 1970, the filmWatermelon Man was released, directed byMelvin Van Peebles and starringGodfrey Cambridge.^{[citation needed]}

In 1971, the release ofSweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song andShaft marked the start ofBlaxploitation films.^[13] The Blaxploitation genre catered to Black male fantasies surrounding violence, sex, the drug trade, pimping and overcoming "The Man".^[14][15]

On April 20, 1971, theSupreme Court, inSwann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheldbusing of students to achieve integration. In June 1971,eight African-Americans were found shot dead in a house in Detroit, in the worst mass killing in Detroit's history.^[16][17] In December 1971,Jesse Jackson organizedOperation PUSH in Chicago.

In 1972,Shirley Chisholm became the first major-party African-American candidate forPresident of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. In 1976,Black History Month was founded by ProfessorCarter Woodson and theAssociation for the Study of Afro-American Life and History.

In 1972,DJ Kool Herc developed the musical blueprint for what later becamehip-hop, later playing live shows for high school-age students inthe Bronx,New York City.^[18]

In January 1973, gunmenstormed a house in Washington DC, and drowned four African-American children in bathtubs, and shot and killed two men and a boy.^[19][20] The house was occupied by members of theHanafi Muslim sect, whose leader was in a dispute with theNation of Islam.^[19][20] In 1977 the leader of the Hanafi sect led an armed takeoverof 3 buildings in Washington DC, taking 149 hostages, to bring attention to the murder of his family.^[21] Two people were killed during the incident.^[22]

In the 1973 and 1974 MLB seasons, African-American baseball playerHank Aaron sought to pass Babe Ruth's career home-run record. Between 1973 and 1974, Aaron broke the world record for most mail received in one year with over 950,000 letters. Over one-third of those letters were hate mail letters for beating a white man's record, including death threats.

In June 1974,Martin Luther King's mother was assassinated.^[23]Alberta Williams King was shot dead at a church during a Sunday service.^[24]

Alex Haley published his novelRoots: The Saga of an American Family in 1976. It became a bestseller and generated great levels of interest in African-American genealogy and history. Roots was adapted into an eight part1977 TV series that attracted a huge audience across the country.^[25][26]

PresidentJimmy Carter appointedAndrew Young to serve asAmbassador to the United Nations in 1977, the first African American to serve in the position. InRegents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the U.S. Supreme Court barredracial quota systems in college admissions but affirmed the constitutionality ofaffirmative action programs giving equal access to minorities.

On November 18, 1978, six hundred and forty eight African-Americans died in the mass murder/suicide of thePeoples Temple religious group inJonestown,Guyana.^[27] The religious group, led byJim Jones, had relocated from California to establish a community in Guyana, South America.^[27]

TheAtlanta Child Murders which were committed between 1979 and 1981 set Atlanta's Black community on edge.^[28] At least 28 Black children and teenagers were abducted and murdered in similar circumstances in less than two years before their killer was caught.^[28]

• 
  1520Sedgwick Avenue whereDJ Kool Herc threw his first parties inthe Bronx, New York City in 1973, considered to be the birth ofhip-hop.^[29]
• 
  The cast ofThe Jeffersons in 1976.The Jeffersons ran from 1975 to 1985, and was the second-longest running TV series with a mainly African-American cast.^[30][31]
• 
  Followers ofJim Jones in San Francisco in January 1977

In 1982,Michael Jackson releasedThriller, which became the best-selling album of all time.^{[citation needed]}

TheMiracle Valley shootout in October 1982 saw two Black churchgoers killed and seven Arizona law enforcement officers injured.^[32]

In 1983,Guion Bluford became the firstAfrican American to go into space in NASA's program. PresidentRonald Reagan signed a bill in 1983 to create a federal holiday to honorMartin Luther King Jr., who wasassassinated in 1968 and considered a martyr to civil rights. Established by legislation in 1983,Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first celebrated as a national holiday on January 20, 1986.Alice Walker received thePulitzer Prize in 1983 for her novelThe Color Purple. In September 1983,Vanessa L. Williams became the first African American to win the title ofMiss America asMiss America 1984.

Thecrack cocaine epidemic had a devastating effect on Black America.^[33] As early as 1981, reports of crack were appearing inLos Angeles,San Diego,Miami, andHouston.^[34] In 1984, the distribution and use of crack exploded.^[34] In 1984, in some major cities such asNew York,Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, andDetroit, one dosage unit of crack could be obtained for as little as $2.50 (equivalent to $7.57 in 2024).^[34]

Between 1984 and 1989, the homicide rate for black males aged 14 to 17 more than doubled, and the homicide rate for black males aged 18 to 24 increased nearly as much. During this period, the black community also suffered a 20%–100% increase in fetal death rates, low birth-weight babies, weapons arrests, and the number of children in foster care.^[33]

The beginning of the crack epidemic coincided with the rise ofhip hop music in the Black community in the mid-1980s, strongly influencing the evolution ofhardcore hip hop andgangsta rap, as crack and hip hop became the two leading fundamentals of urban street culture.^[35]

The Cosby Show begins as a TV series in 1984. Featuring an upper-middle-class family with comedianBill Cosby as a physician and head of the family, it is regarded^{[by whom?]} as one of the defining television shows of the decade.

On November 21, 1984, top youth basketballerBen Wilson was shot and killed in Chicago.^[36][37][38] Wilson was regarded as the top high school player in the U.S., by scouts and coaches attending the 1984 Athletes For Better Education basketball camp.^[36][37][38]

11 members of theBlack liberation andback-to-nature groupMOVE died during a standoff with police inWest Philadelphia on May 13, 1985.John Africa, the founder of MOVE was killed, as well as five other adults and five children. 65 homes were destroyed after a police helicopter dropped an incendiary device, causing an out of control fire in surrounding houses.^[39]

The filmThe Color Purple was released to box office success in December 1985.^[40] Set in the early 20th Century,The Color Purple tells the story of a young Black girl named Celie Harris who faces issues both public and socially hidden, includingdomestic violence,incest,pedophilia,poverty,racism, andsexism.^[41]The Color Purple has been described as "a plea for respect for Black women."^[42]

In January 1987 in rural Forsyth County, Georgia, about 20,000 demonstratorstook part in a march after a previous march in the county was disrupted by white supremacists and Klansmen in one of the largest civil rights demonstrations since the 1960s.

Beloved byToni Morrison was published in 1987. In 2006, aNew York Times survey of writers and literary critics ranked it as the best work of American fiction in the last 25 years.^[43] After producing additional masterworks, Toni Morrison was later awarded theNobel Prize for Literature.

In 1988, track and field athleteFlorence Griffith Joyner, also known as "Flo Jo", won three gold and one silver medal at the1988 Summer Olympics.^[44] At the time, her medal haul was the second most for a female track and field athlete in history.^[44]

1989 saw the first major African-Americangangsta rap album -N.W.A'sStraight Outta Compton.^[45][46] Gangsta rap would be recurrently accused of promotinganti-social behavior and broadcriminality, especially assault,homicide and drug dealing,misogyny,promiscuity andmaterialism.^[47]

Ron Brown was elected chairman of theDemocratic National Committee in 1989, becoming the first African American to lead a majorUnited Statespolitical party.Colin Powell was appointed as Chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff in 1989.

In1989,Douglas Wilder was elected as the firstAfrican-Americangovernor of Virginia, and the first African-American elected governor of theUnited States.

• 
  Michael Jackson's 1982 albumThriller became the best selling album of all time.^[48]
• 
  Track and field starFlorence Griffith Joyner won three gold and one silver medal at the1988 Summer Olympics.^[44]

Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991.

In July 1991, serial killer and cannibalJeffrey Dahmer was arrested. Eleven of Dahmer's 17 victims were African-Americans.^[49]

The1992 Los Angeles riots erupted after the officers accused of beatingRodney King in March 1991 were acquitted. In 1992Mae Carol Jemison became the firstAfrican-American woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard theSpace ShuttleEndeavour.Carol Moseley Braun (D-Illinois) became the first African-American woman to be elected to the United States Senate on November 3, 1992.

DirectorSpike Lee's filmMalcolm X was released in 1992, a serious biography of the leader of theNation of Islam.

In 1993, civil rights activistC. Delores Tucker started publicly campaigning againstmisogyny in rap music.^[50] Tucker believed that the attacks upon Black women in hip-hop lyrics threatened the moral foundation of African American society.^[50] In response, Delores Tucker was lyrically disparaged by multiple rappers, includingTupac,^[51] andEminem.^[52]

Cornel West's text,Race Matters, was published in 1994.

TheMillion Man March was held on October 16, 1995, inWashington, D.C., co-initiated byLouis Farrakhan andJames Bevel. TheMillion Woman March was held on October 25, 1997, inPhiladelphia.

The racially chargedmurder trial of O.J. Simpson transfixed America between January and October 1995. The trial of the already famous NFL star and actorO. J. Simpson was the most publicized in U.S. history.^[53]

On January 20, 2001,Colin Powell was appointed as the first African American to beSecretary of State. In June 2003, theSupreme Court inGrutter v. Bollinger upheld theUniversity of Michigan Law School's racial admission policy. In the simultaneously heardGratz v. Bollinger, the university was required to change a racial admissions policy.^[54]

In 2004, the founder of the New York-basedNuwaubian Nation,Dwight York, was sentenced to 135 years for child molestation and racketeering.^[55][56]

TheMillions More Movement held a march in Washington D.C on October 15, 2005.Rosa Parks died at the age of 92 on October 25, 2005. Rosa Parks was a noted civil rights activist who had helped initiate theMontgomery bus boycott in 1955. As an honor, her bodylay in state in theCapitol Rotunda inWashington, D.C., before her funeral.

In March 2007, theCherokee Nation voted toexpel African American descendants of slaves held by the Cherokee from the Cherokee tribe.^[57] This ruling ignited a 10-year legal battle, with the BlackCherokee freedmen regaining their legal status within the Cherokee Nation in 2017.^[58]

On June 28, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court inParents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, decided along withMeredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, ruled that school districts could not assign students to particular public schools solely for the purpose of achieving racial integration; it declined to recognize racial balancing as a compelling state interest.

On June 3, 2008,Barack Obama received enough delegates by the end of state primaries to be the presumptiveDemocratic Party of the United States nominee.^[59] On August 28, 2008, at the2008 Democratic National Convention, in a stadium filled with supporters, Obama accepted the Democratic nomination forPresident of the United States. Obama was elected 44th President of the United States of America on November 4, 2008, opening his victory speech with, "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."^[60]

On January 20, 2009, Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, the first African American to become president. Former Maryland Lt. GovernorMichael Steele, an African American, was elected as Chairman of theRepublican National Committee on January 30, 2009.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2009, Obamawas awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.^[61]

In 2010, theU.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative six-stamp set portraying twelve civil rights pioneers.

This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(April 2019)

On July 19, 2010,Shirley Sherrod was pressured to resign from theU.S. Department of Agriculture because of controversial publicity. The department apologized to her for her being inaccurately portrayed as racist toward white Americans.^[62]

In 2013, protests were held across the United States following the death of an unarmed African-American teenager,Trayvon Martin, who was shot byGeorge Zimmerman in Florida. Zimmerman was charged with murder, but later acquitted. In reaction to Martin's death and Zimmerman's acquittal, Black activistsAlicia Garza,Patrisse Cullors, andOpal Tometi popularized the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

In 2014, massive protests were held in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting death ofMichael Brown Jr. by Ferguson police. In July 2014, the death ofEric Garner while being held in a chokehold by a New York City policeman, Daniel Pantaleo, sparked additional outrage and protests across the country. In the wake of these deaths, and others,Black Lives Matter developed into a nationwide non-violent movement.

On June 17, 2015, Nine Black churchgoers were murdered in the racially motivatedCharleston church shooting.^[63]

From 2019, theAmerican Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) political movement began to differentiate themselves from the growing number ofBlack African immigrants in the United States andBlack immigrants in the U.S. from the Caribbean.^[64]

In later May 2020, a video was posted onsocial media platforms showingGeorge Floydbeing murdered by aMinneapolis Police Department officer,Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd's neck forover ten minutes. Floyd's murder sparked outrage and condemnation across the country and the globe. Despite restrictions on public gatherings of large sizes due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, largeprotests were held in cities across the United States as well as in many other nations.

On August 28, 2020, thousands of people gathered at theLincoln Memorial inWashington, D.C., for theCommitment March, organized by Rev.Al Sharpton and joined byMartin Luther King III, in support of black civil rights.^[65]

In late 2020, thePortland foreclosure protest was a response to the eviction of an Afro-indigenous family inPortland, Oregon.^[66]

Across 2020, the COVID-19 pandemichad a disproportionately negative impact upon Black Americans. Black Americans died from the virus at a higher rate than the general population.^[67][68] Black Americans also suffered significant economic hardship due to the virus.^[69]

On March 31, 2019, rapper, entrepreneur, and activistNipsey Hussle was murdered in Los Angeles.^[70][71][72] The news of Hussle's deathreverberated across Black America.^[73]

On November 3, 2020,Kamala Harris was elected the first BlackVice President of the United States.

On April 23, 2025,President Donald Trumprevoked Executive order 14041.^[74] Originally signedby President Biden, the order declares "It is the policy of my Administration to advance educational equity, excellence, and economic opportunity in partnership withHBCUs, and to ensure that these vital institutions of higher learning have the resources and support to continue to thrive for generations to come."^[75]

In 1989,Douglas Wilder became the first African American to be elected governor in U.S. history. In 1992Carol Moseley-Braun ofIllinois became the first black woman to be elected to theU.S. Senate. In 2000 there were 8,936 black officeholders in the United States, showing a net increase of 7,467 since 1970. In 2001 there were 484 black mayors.^[76]

The 38 African-American members of Congress formed theCongressional Black Caucus, which serves as a political bloc for issues relating to African Americans. The appointment of blacks to high federal offices—including GeneralColin Powell, Chairman of the U.S. Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1989–1993,United States Secretary of State, 2001–2005;Condoleezza Rice, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 2001–2004, Secretary of State in, 2005–2009;Ron Brown,United States Secretary of Commerce, 1993–1996,Eric Holder,Attorney General of the United States, 2009–present; and Supreme Court justicesThurgood Marshall andClarence Thomas—also demonstrates the increasing contributions of blacks in the political arena.

In 2009,Michael S. Steele was elected as the first African-American chairman of thenational Republican Party.^[77]

In 2021,Ebenezer Baptist Church pastorRaphael Warnock became the first African American Democratic Senator from a former Confederate state.

In2008 presidential elections, Illinois senatorBarack Obama became the first black presidential nominee of theDemocratic Party, the first Black presidential candidate from a major political party. He was elected as the 44thPresident of the United States on November 4, 2008, and inaugurated on January 20, 2009.^{[citation needed]}

At least 95 percent of African-American voters voted for Obama. Obama won big among young and minority voters, bringing a number of new states to the Democratic electoral column.^[78][79] Obama became the first Democrat sinceJimmy Carter to win a popular vote majority. He also received overwhelming support from whites, a majority of Asians, and Americans of Hispanic origin.^[80] Obama lost the overall white vote, but he won a larger proportion of white votes than any previous non-incumbent Democratic presidential candidate sinceJimmy Carter.^[81]

Marriages between African-Americans and people of other races have significantly increased since all race-based legal restrictions on interracial marriage ended followingLoving v. Virginia in 1967.^[82] The overall rate of marriages between African-Americans and non-Black spouses more than tripled between 1980 and 2015, from 5% to 18%.^[83] 24% of all Black male newlyweds married outside their race in 2015, compared to 12% of Black female newlyweds.^[83]

Nearly 25% of all black Americans live below thepoverty line in the early 21st century, approximately the same percentage as the percentage of all black Americans who lived below the poverty line in 1968. Thechild poverty rate has also increased among African Americans and their rate of unemployment is disproportionately high in comparison to the rate of unemployment among members of other ethnic groups.^[84]

In public opinion, these sobering facts have sometimes been masked by the spectacular achievements of successful individuals. African Americans are underrepresented in the rapidly expanding and lucrative fields related to computer programming and technology, where innovations have led to some people making huge new fortunes.^{[citation needed]}

Economic progress for black people reaching the extremes of wealth has been slow. According toForbes "richest" lists,Oprah Winfrey was the richest African American of the 20th century and has been the world's onlyblack billionaire in 2004, 2005, and 2006.^[85] Not only was Winfrey the world's only black billionaire but she has been the only black person on theForbes 400 list nearly every year since 1995.BET founderBob Johnson briefly joined her on the list from 2001 to 2003 before his ex-wife acquired part of his fortune; although he returned to the list in 2006, he did not make it in 2007. Black people currently comprise 0.25% of America's economic elite; they make up 13% of the total U.S. population.^[86]

Despite the gains of thecivil rights movement, other factors have resulted in African-American communities suffering from extremely highincarceration rates of their young males. Contributing factors have been the drug war waged by successive administrations, imposition of sentencing guidelines at the federal and state levels, cutbacks in government assistance, restructuring of industry since the mid-20th century and extensive loss of working-class jobs leading to highpoverty rates, and government neglect, anerosion of African American two parent families, and unfavorable social policies. African Americans have the highest imprisonment rate of any major ethnic group in the United States and the world, and are sentenced to death at a rate higher than any other ethnic group.^{[citation needed]}

Thesouthern states of the formerConfederacy, which historically had maintainedslavery longer than in the remainder of the country and imposedpost-Reconstruction oppression, have the highest rates of incarceration and application of thedeath penalty.^[104][105]

• Timeline of African-American history
• Timeline of the civil rights movement

• Post–civil rights era in African-American history

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