African-American Leadership, Politics, and Institutions

African Americans have a long history in the Americas. Their experience in United States is however laden with historical records of oppression and segregation. It has been difficult to shed off slavery tags that emanates from their historical entry into the Americas. There are many issues that emerge when considering the experience of African Americans. One of the most important issues that has been extensively studied in regard to African American experience is the issue of leadership and politics. For a long time, African-American leadership has been sidelined until the rise of civil rights movements starting from 1950s. Since then, African Americans have exerted their position in United States leadership culminating in election of current President Barrack Obama, who became the first African-American president of the country. African American leadership and participation in politics and public institution is a case example of resilience in a hostile environment laden with segregation and historical tag of slavery.

Before delving into the issue of leadership and political participation, it is important to operationalize the term African Americans as shall be used in this paper and in historical context. African Americans are a group of people with an African decent but have genuine citizenship of the United States of America (Dorsey, 2007). Their history in Americans started during the 15th century when plantation farming was introduced and they were used to supply cheap labor that was required to work in the American plantations. During the colonization period, American people had established plantation agriculture in most of its colonies. Therefore, the need for workers in the colonies emerged and the only solution for ...

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...lusion, we can therefore say that African American leadership has been persistent and resilience to the obstacles it has faced in the century long development.

Works Cited

Amadu, K. (2007). African Americans and U.S. Politics: The Gradual Progress of Black Women in Political Representation. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers.

Charles, M. (2003). Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950. London: vintage publishers.

Dorsey, A. (2007). Black History Is American History: Teaching African American History in the Twenty-first Century. Journal of American History, 93(4): 1171-1177

Lawrence, L. (2007). Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. London: Sage Publishers.

Robin, D. G. (2000). To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers.