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Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson

]] Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966 in Gary, Indiana) is an African American pop, R&B and soul singer-songwriter, dancer, actress and the youngest child of the famed Jackson music family. Breaking away from the shadows of her brothers, Jackson now ranks as the ninth most successful artist in the history of rock and roll, and is the youngest artist in the top ten of that group, according to Billboard magazine in 2004, and has gone to sell over 130 million albums and singles worldwide. Her high-octane choreography, music videos and pop appeal has influenced some of today's young female singers including Ciara, Missy Elliott and Beyonce Knowles.

Biography

Early life and career

Janet was born the last of ten children in Gary, Indiana to parents Joseph and Katherine Jackson. Living in a two-bedroom shack with eight older siblings, Janet's father, Joseph, or Joe, worked as a crane operator in a steel mill and before she became a devout Jehovah's Witness, her mother Katherine worked as a store clerk for Sears. Before Janet's birth, her father decided to try a hand at a music career fronting the R&B band the Falcons, but never got as far as the top nightclubs in Indiana. According to reports, Janet's father was gregarious and stern while her mother was deeply religious and seemed saintly. By the time she was a toddler, Janet's older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael had already begun to perform on stage at nightclubs and theaters as the Jackson 5. In March 1969, the group signed to Motown Records, and by the end of the year, the group recorded their first of their four consecutive number-one singles, "I Want You Back". By the time the Jackson 5 had achieved success when they became the first band to score their first four #1 singles, the entire family moved to Southern California, eventually settling in a gated mansion they named Hayvenhurst in 1971. Aspired to be a horse jockey after a profound infatuation with horses at the age of seven, Janet had no intention of entering show business. However, her father thought otherwise, as he saw her potential early on. After the success of the Jackson 5 began to dwindle, Joseph decided to bring the rest of his children into the spotlight, including Janet. On April 9, 1974, Janet made her public debut performance at a Las Vegas nightclub, with nearly all nine members of the Jackson family. Jackson quickly became the star of the show, emulating and imitating various celebrities of the day such as Cher, Marie Osmond, Toni Tennille, and Mae West, in particular. By 1976, Janet and the family's Vegas act had caught the attention of CBS' president Fred Silverman. The network was desperately trying to find a new variety act to replace the recently ended Sonny & Cher Show, since ABC had a competing show featuring Donny and Marie Osmond. Debuting on June 16, 1976, The Jacksons show became the first African-American family to have a variety show on TV. The show lasted only two seasons and was canceled in 1977.

Acting career

In 1977, 11-year-old Jackson's enthusiasm for acting caught television producer Norman Lear's ear. Lear was looking for someone to reawaken one of his groundbreaking shows from TV ruin - the family sitcom Good Times. Lear cast Jackson in Good Times as an abused child named Penny. The show's star, J.J. Evans, played by Jimmie Walker, was the apple of Penny's eye on the show, a fact the character would make known every time she saw him. Jackson became one of the show's starring cast members during the 1977-1978 season, and would remain in the show until it was canceled in 1979. Jackson continued her acting career, appearing briefly in a short-lived but Emmy nominated sitcom titled A New Kind of Family which also starred Rob Lowe, but was cancelled in early 1980. In 1981, she landed a recurring role on another family sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes, playing Charlene Duprey, the love interest of Willis (played by Todd Bridges). Jackson had become the idol for black girls, a notable example being Moesha Mitchell, who was portrayed by Brandy Norwood in the 1990s sitcom Moesha. In 1984, Jackson reluctantly took the role of Cleo Hewitt in the musical series, Fame. She later told interviewers that her father told her to do the role. After a year, Jackson asked to be let go of her contract, and did not appear in another television series for nineteen years.

Early musical endeavors

Jackson always had an interest in music, writing her first song at the age of nine, but she never aspired to be a professional singer. Nonetheless, she agreed to participate in music just to help her family out. Her first ever recording was a duet with her brother Randy on a song titled "A Love Song for Kids" in 1978. She would participate in her family's other recordings, particularly with sister LaToya and brother Michael. In 1981, Jackson and her two older sisters LaToya and Rebbie had wanted to start their own musical group, but disagreements between the older sisters forced the group to disband before ever making a record. Instead Janet featured on LaToya's 1981 album called My Special Love on the pop track titled "Camp Kuchi Kaiai".

Janet Jackson, Dream Street, Fame and James DeBarge

Although she was asked by her father Joseph to start a singing career, Jackson was uncomfortable with being in the recording studio, feeling she was not as talented vocally as her brothers, particularly brother Michael, who was becoming a solo pop superstar. Nonetheless, at the age of sixteen, she released her debut album simply called Janet Jackson (1982), though the teenager protested that her last name should not have been on the cover. Produced by soul singers Angela Winbush, Rene Moore and Leon Sylvers of the famed Sylvers family music group, the album reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B album charts, and spent forty-five weeks in the top fifty, but was less successful on the Billboard Pop albums chart. The album yielded three singles including her first top ten hit on the Billboard R&B charts, "Young Love", and two top twenty follow-ups, "Say You Do" and "Come Give Your Love to Me". Janet Jackson sold over a quarter million copies, and was the tenth best-selling R&B album of 1983 according to Billboard magazine. Billboard In 1984, Jackson, now eighteen, released her second album, titled Dream Street. It marked a musical progression from her debut, with funkier, up-tempo production by brother Marlon and famed disco producer Giorgio Moroder, producer of songs for artists such as Donna Summer. The album failed to make the top one hundred of the Billboard pop album charts and barely reached the top twenty on the R&B chart. With sales of Dream Street amounting to about half of her debut's, critics soon began to demean Jackson's career as a pop star over. Around the same time, Jackson fell in love and eloped with James DeBarge, member of the Motown family group DeBarge. The marriage was annulled in March 1985, with DeBarge's drug habit often cited as the reason. After the marriage was annulled and after years of dealing with being a member of a world-famous family, Jackson began to search for independence.

Control and Rhythm Nation

After the limited success of her first two albums, A&M A&R John McClain recruited producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to enliven the music career of the nineteen-year-old. Before leaving for Minneapolis, however, the producers were given the blessing of Jackson's father, who was her manager at the time, after they promised him that Jackson would not sound anything like Prince. Within months, Jackson, Jam & Lewis crafted the record Control, in which Jackson told her life through a musical basis. Control Control, released in 1986, became a smash hit based on singles such as "What Have You Done For Me Lately", "Nasty" and "When I Think of You". The album became a breakthrough record for Jackson partly due to the singles' music videos that showcased a different side of Jackson, containing dynamic dance moves choreographed by Paula Abdul. By the end of 1986, the album had sold over five million copies in America alone, making Jackson a popular artist. In 1989, Jackson began recording her fourth album, Rhythm Nation 1814. Executives at A&M wanted a record that was similar to Control, but Jackson was determined to do the exact opposite. Instead, she presented a mixed bag of socially-conscious tracks (inspired by the work of Marvin Gaye and Joni Mitchell), danceable New Jack Swing tunes, a rare rock number and several romantic ballads. Released in 1989, Rhythm Nation 1814 sold six million copies by the end of the following year, and became the first album to spawn seven top five singles. Jackson won multiple awards, and went on a top-selling tour to promote the album that has since been regarded as the most successful debut tour of any artist. The letter 'R' is the 18th letter of the alphabet and 'N' is the fourteenth.

Poetic Justice and the janet. album

rock After finding success as a singer, Jackson was given a chance to resume her acting career when director John Singleton allowed her to audition for his film Poetic Justice, as a tough, poetic hairdresser from South Central, Los Angeles. Jackson won the role in the romantic drama, starring opposite rapper Tupac Shakur. The film opened in 1993, and depicted a very different image of Jackson than what had been seen before; her character cursed and even threatened people who ever crossed her. This coincided with a change in Jackson's music as she entered the studio to record her fifth album (and third with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis), whose music was brasher and more sexually charged than her previous work. The album, titled janet., was released by Jackson's new label Virgin in 1993, and lead single "That's The Way Love Goes", became a number-one hit on the pop and R&B singles chart. The Oscar-nominated "Again" reached number-one on the pop chart and "Any Time, Any Place" spent ten weeks at the top of the R&B Singles Chart. The album became the first of the Nielsen SoundScan era to debut in the U.S. at number one, and it reached number one in twenty-two countries, sold seventeen million copies and won several awards, including a Grammy Award. It was the fourth best-selling album of the year in the U.S., and the eighth biggest selling album of the following year on the year end Billboard Top Albums chart. In September 1993, Jackson appeared topless on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The magazine cover became one of the most celebrated photos ever taken of a rock artist, and Rolling Stone named it their "Most Popular Cover Ever" in 2000.

The Velvet Rope

Rolling Stone In 1996, Jackson re-signed with Virgin for a reported $80 million, which made her the highest paid recording artist of all time. Around the same time, she was busy trying to create a concept around her seventh album, and went through clinical depression. The result was The Velvet Rope (1997), her fourth number-one album on the Billboard 200. Alongside a love song ("I Get Lonely"), sex song ("Rope Burn") and anti-racism anthem (the hidden track "Can't Be Stopped"), most of the album showcased pain, life lost, and spiritual growth. The album's became another multi-platinum effort for the singer, and yielded a total of four hit singles: the Q-Tip and Joni Mitchell-assisted "Got 'til It's Gone", "Together Again", which was dedicated to AIDS victims, "I Get Lonely", which became one of the biggest R&B hits of the year, and the number-one dance number, "Go Deep". Following her failed marriage to James DeBarge in 1985, Jackson had begun an on-again, off-again courtship with former dancer Rene Elizondo that resulted in a secret marriage in March 1991. Around the release of The Velvet Rope the media speculated that their marriage had begun to fall apart, with both Jackson and Elizondo admitting that they had become more business partners than a couple, cultivating the sounds that made Jackson's music popular. By 1999 their marriage was over, though it was not made public until the following year. Jackson explained in interviews that, having been in the public spotlight herself at a young age, she felt that announcing her marriage publicly would have a negative effect on the relationship, which was already struggling. Elizondo later sued Jackson for spousal support, their court battle finally ending in 2002 with the divorce finalized and Elizondo receiving half the multi-million dollar pay-off he was hoping for. Jackson's song "Son of a Gun" (2001) was believed to be about Elizondo, but she has neither disputed or confirmed that rumour, only saying "the song could be about anybody".

Nutty Professor II: The Klumps and All For You

Jackson was given a chance to continue her acting career when the producers of the sequel to the comedy film Nutty Professor (1998) offered her the role originated by Jada Pinkett-Smith in the first film, though for several months there was speculation over whether or not Jackson would take the part. Starring Eddie Murphy, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps was released in 2000 and went on to gross $142.7 million at the box office. Jackson recorded a single for the film's soundtrack, "Doesn't Really Matter", which reached number-one on the Billboard pop charts within a few weeks of its release. Doesn't Really Matter Jackson's eight album, All for You, a more upbeat record than The Velvet Rope, was released in 2001. The album's number-one title track became the first single to reach every format of radio on the day of its release, and its success helped the album debut at number-one in its first week of sales with more than 605,000 copies sold in the U.S. All for You would go on to sell more than three million copies in America (and six million overseas), and spawned the top five hit "Someone To Call My Lover". Gossip columns, meanwhile, were alleging relationships with actor Matthew McConaughey, singer Justin Timberlake, singer Johnny Gill and rapper Q-Tip, as well as reporting that Jackson engaged in lesbianism with her female back-up dancers. In reality, by 2002, Jackson had started a relationship with hip-hop producer and music mogul Jermaine Dupri. After scoring a top forty single with "Son of a Gun" and performing her last concert for her tour in Hawaii, she collaborated with reggae singer Beenie Man on the top forty song "Feel It Boy". Jackson began work on her next album the following year, and accepted an invitation to join that following year's Super Bowl festivities, saying it would be a pleasure to be performing there.

The Super Bowl and Damita Jo

Beenie Man.]] During the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII on February 1, 2004, Jackson performed with Justin Timberlake to an audience of more than one hundred million people. During this live performance, Jackson sang along with Timberlake on his song "Rock Your Body". When they sang the lyric "gonna have you naked by the end of this song", her top was torn open by Timberlake, exposing Jackson's right breast; the nipple was partially covered by a nipple shield. Timberlake called the incident a "wardrobe malfunction". Jackson apologized at first, calling it an accident and claiming that Timberlake was supposed to pull away the bustier and leave the red-lace bra intact, however, she later said to an interviewer for Genre magazine that she wishes she had not apologized at all. CBS, the NFL, and MTV, which produced the halftime show, disclaimed all responsibility under a hailstorm of controversy. Jackson and Timberlake confirmed those denials, but the FCC continued with its investigation. As a result, CBS conditioned its invitation for Jackson to appear at the 2004 Grammy Awards ceremony on another public apology. She declined, but Justin Timberlake apologized and appeared as both a performer and a presenter. Because of heightened FCC scrutiny of obscene content on television and radio, the entertainment industry suffered a major backlash. Broadcasters implemented video delays of several minutes in some cases where only audio delays had been used before. Programs that once pushed the envelope began eliminating even mildly coarse language from their broadcasts. Some performers were penalized for things that had been acceptable previously. The incident also resulted in further professional setbacks for Jackson. Prior to the Super Bowl, she was set to play legendary entertainer Lena Horne in her bio-pic, but following the Superbowl incident, Horne reportedly refused to return her contract for the film until Jackson was dropped from the project. The project, meanwhile, has been put on hold indefinitely. Lena Horne The Super Bowl controversy had yet to die down when a month later, she released her eighth studio effort, Damita Jo. Despite a high debut at number two and opening week sales of nearly 400,000 copies (one of the biggest opening debuts for a female artist), it became a commercial and critical disappointment. The songs released from the album, including the Prince-inspired "Just a Little While", the Motown/Supremes-inspired ballad "I Want You" and "All Nite (Don't Stop)" also performed modestly on the charts. During an interview with David Letterman explain the incident, she was censored when she said "Oh, Jesus". To make the controversy seem less harming, Jackson appeared as Condoleezza Rice in a skit parodying the incident on Saturday Night Live, and it was the highest rating episode of the show in sixteen months since Al Gore had hosted. Jackson also appeared in the sitcom Will & Grace, playing herself as Jack trialled to be her back-up dancer. It was her first appearance in decades on the small screen. Damita Jo later received nominations from the American Music Awards, Source Music Awards, BET Music Awards and Grammy Awards.

Jermaine Dupri, controversies & the future

Starting in 2002, Jackson and Jermaine Dupri had begun a secret courtship, and Dupri left his post on the Grammy Awards committee after Jackson refused to apologize again for what happened at the Superbowl. Since 2004, there have been rumours that the couple married, though they have constantly denied these reports. Dupri appeared in Jackson's video for "I Want You" while Janet returned the favor by appearing in Dupri's video for his single "Gotta Getcha" for his new album The Young, Fly and the Flashy Vol. 1. In October 2005, long-standing rumours regarding Jackson having a secret daughter by her first husband, James DeBarge, resurfaced. This time, the allegations were made by 28-year-old Daryll "Young" DeBarge, James DeBarge's youngest brother. In a radio interview with New York's Hot 97 radio station, Young claimed that the child, named Renee, is eighteen and lives with Jackson's oldest sister Rebbie, and that no one except members of the Jackson family is certain of what the arrangement is between Janet, her sister, and her daughter. Jackson's insistence on secrecy in all her personal affairs has only fueled the rampant speculation. On October 26, Jackson released a statement via Access Hollywood denying DeBarge's claims. A few weeks later, a 34-second video leaked onto the Internet showing Jackson sunbathing in the nude. In the video, she appears to be lying face-up before rolling over and rhythmically slapping her buttocks to the music playing on her radio. It is unknown when this video was recorded but it is believed that it was filmed by a member of the paparazzi. Jackson is currently preparing work for a new album, scheduled for a 2006 release. According to Jimmy Jam, the album is said to feature more dance numbers. Dupri is said to be one of the executive producers of the album and has said the new album may be an updated version of her hit 1986 album, Control

Discography

For a complete discography and sales information see: Janet Jackson discography

US and UK top ten singles

The following singles reached the top ten of either the United States pop singles chart or the United Kingdom pop singles chart. Also included are the singles that hit #1 on the US R&B charts.

Top ten albums

The following albums reached the top ten of either the United States pop albums chart or the United Kingdom pop albums chart.
- 1986: Control (US #1 5x Platinum , UK #8)
- 1989: Rhythm Nation 1814 (US #1 6x Platinum , UK #4)
- 1993: janet. (US #1 6x Platinum , UK #1)
- 1995: Design of a Decade 1986/1996 (US #3 2x Platinum , UK #2)
- 1997: The Velvet Rope (US #1 3x Platinum , UK #6)
- 2001: All for You (US #1 3x Platinum , UK #2)
- 2004: Damita Jo (US #2, Platinum)

Filmography

- Poetic Justice (1993)
- Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)

Awards and accolades

- For a list of awards see: List of Janet Jackson awards and accolades
- For a list of Grammy nominations see: Grammy nominations for Janet Jackson
- For a list of MTV Video Music Award nominations see: MTV Video Music Award nominations for Janet Jackson

External links

1966

1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar)

Events

January

- January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic.
- January 2 - Strike of public transportation workers in New York City - ends January 13
- January 3 - First Acid Test at the Fillmore, San Francisco
- January 4 - Military coup in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso).
- January 4 - Prime ministers of India and Pakistan meet in Moscow
- January 5 - Fire due to a gas leak in Feyzin oil refinery near Lyon, France - 12 dead, 80 injured
- January 10 - Pakistani-Indian peace negotiations end successfully in Moscow
- January 10 - French paper L'Express publishes a story of Georges Figon, who took part of the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barka. January 18 French police announces that Figon has committed suicide just before he was about to be arrested
- January 11 - Conference about the situation in Rhodesia begins in Lagos
- January 11 - Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri dies
- January 12 - Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
- January 13 - Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
- January 15 - A violent military coup in Nigeria
- January 15 - Moscow announces that Sergei Korolev is dead
- January 17 - The Nigerian coup is overturned
- January 17 - A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one into the sea
- January 17 - Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, is involved in an accident on a routine mission which amputates his leg.
- January 18 - About 8000 US soldiers land in South Vietnam - numbers of US troops total 190.000
- January 19 - Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India - sworn in January 24
- January 19 - Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies resigns
- January 20 - Demonstrations against high food prices in Hungary
- January 21 - Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro resigns due to a power struggle in his party
- January 22 - Military government of Nigeria announces that ex-prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa has been killed during the coup
- January 26 - Harold Holt becomes Prime Minister of Australia when Robert Menzies retires
- January 26 - Three Beaumont chrildren disapper on their way to Glenelg Beach Adelaide SA, Australia. Never to be seen again
- January 27 - British government promises USA that British troops in Malaysia stay until more peaceful conditions in the region
- January 29 - The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opens at the Palace Theatre in New York City.
- January 31 - United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia
- January - First SR-71 spy plane goes into service.

February

- February 1 - West Germany has purchased 2600 political prisoners from East Germany
- February 3 - The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon
- February 4 - Japanese passenger jet crashes into Tokyo Bay - 133 dead
- February 6 - Fidel Castro blames China for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda among Cuban soldiers
- February 10 - Soviet writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinjavski are sentenced for five and seven years, respectively, for anti-Soviet writings
- February 11 - Belgian government resigns
- February 14 - The Australian Dollar was introduced at a rate of two dollars per pound, or ten shillings per dollar.
- February 19 - Naval minister of United Kingdom, Christopher Mayhew, resigns
- February 20 - When Valeri Tarsis, Soviet author and translator is abroad, Soviet Union negates his citizenship
- February 23 - A military coup in Syria replaces the previous government with a Ba'athist regime.
- February 24 - A military coup in Ghana raises sacked general Ankrah to power while president Kwame Nkrumah is abroad.
- February 26 - Curfew in Jakarta
- February 28 - US astronauts Charles Bassett and Elliott See are killed in an aircraft accident in St. Louis, MO

March

- March 1 - Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
- March 1 - The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria
- March 2 - Kwame Nkrumah arrives in Guinea and is granted an asylum
- March 4 - The Beatles: In an interview published in The Evening Standard, John Lennon comments, "We're more popular than Jesus now," eventually sparking a controversy in the United States.
- March 5 - Massive theft of nuclear materials revealed in Brazil
- March 7 - Charles De Gaulle asks US president Johnson for negotiations about the state of NATO equipment in France
- March 8 - Anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesian foreign ministry
- March 8 – Ronald Kray, one of the Kray twins, shoots rival gangster George Cornell; the incidents leads to brother's incarceration
- March 8 - Vietnam War: Australia announces it is going to substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam
- March 8 - A IRA bomb destroys Nelson's Pillar in Dublin
- March 10 - Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands marries Claus von Amsberg.
- March 10 - Wedding of Beatrix, the crown princess of Netherlands and Claus von Amsberg. Some spectators demonstrate against the groom, because he is German
- March 11 – Indonesian president Sukarno gives all executive powers to general Suharto
- March 11 - French president Charles De Gaulle states that French troops will be taken out of NATO and that all French NATO bases and HQ's must be closed within a year
- March 16 - Gemini 8 docks with Agena target satellite
- March 17 - More anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesia
- March 17 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
- March 23 - Pope Paul VI and Dr Arthur Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, meet in Rome - the first official meeting for 400 years between the Catholic and the Anglican Churches
- March 26 - Demonstrations again the Vietnam War in USA
- March 27 - In South Vietnam, 20.000 Buddhists march in demonstrations against the policies of the military government
- March 28 - Indira Gandhi visits Washington DC
- March 29 - 23rd Communist party conference in Soviet Union - Leonid Brezhnev demands that US troops leave Vietnam and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfying
- March 31 - The Labour Party under Harold Wilson win the British General Election
- March 31 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the moon

April

- April 2 - Indonesian army demands that the country rejoin the United Nations
- April 4 - Luna 10 enters orbit around the moon
- April 7 - The United Kingdom asks the UN Security Council authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violate oil embargo against Rhodesia. Authority is given April 10
- April 8 - Buddhists in South Vietnam protest against the fact that the new government has not set a date for free elections
- April 12 - Jan Berry of Jan & Dean suffers brain damage in a serious automobile accident in Beverly Hills, California
- April 14 - South Vietnamese government promises free elections in 3-5 months
- April 15 - anti-Nasser conspiracy exposed in Egypt
- April 18 - China declares that it stops economic aid to Indonesia
- April 21 - Artificial heart installed to the chest of Marcel DeRudder in Houston hospital
- April 21 - The opening of Parliament of the United Kingdom is televised for the first time
- April 27 - Pope Paul VI and Soviet premier Gromyko meet in the Vatican - the first meeting between representatives of the Catholic Church and Soviet Union
- April 28 - In Rhodesia, security forces kill 7 ZANLA men in combat- Chimurenga, ZANU rebellion begins
- April 29 - US troops in Vietnam total 250.000
- April 30 - regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued 2000 due to Channel Tunnel)

May

- May 1 - Floods in Finnish coast
- May 4 - Fiat signs a contract with Soviet government to build a car factory in Soviet Union
- May 6 - The Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley sentenced for life imprisonment
- May 12 - African members of the UN Security Council say that British army should blockage Rhodesia
- May 12 - Radio Peking claims that US planes have shot down a Chinese plane over Yunnan - US denies the story the next day
- May 14 - Turkey and Greece intend to start negotiations about the situation in Cyprus
- May 15 - Indonesia asks Malaysia for peace negotiations
- May 16-July 1 - Seamen's strike in Britain
- May 15 - South Vietnam army besieges Da Nang
- May 24 - Troops of Uganda army arrest Edward Mutesa II of Buganda and occupy his palace
- May 24 - Nigerian government forbids all political activity in the country (until the January 17 1969)
- May 25 - Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches
- May 25 - In St. Louis, Missouri, US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and US Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall dedicate the Gateway Arch as part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
- May 26 - Guyana achieves independence.
- May 28 - Fidel Castro announces a martial law in Cuba because of possible US attack
- May 28 – Indonesian and Malayan governments declare that Indonesian Confrontation is over. Treaty signed in August 11
- May 31 - Philippines reform diplomatic relations with Malaysia

June

- June 2 - Eamon de Valera re-elected as Irish president
- June 2 - Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarumon the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to soft land on another world
- June 2 - Four former cabinet ministers executed in Zaire for alleged involvement in a plot to kill Mobutu Sese Seko
- June 3 - Joaquín Balaguer elected president of Dominican Republic
- June 5 - Gene Cernan completes second U.S. spacewalk (which lasted 2 hours, 7 minutes) on the Gemini 9 mission.
- June 6 - James Meredith, civil rights activist, is shot while trying to march across Mississippi
- June 13 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them
- June 14 - The Vatican announces the abolition of Index Librorum Prohibitum index of banned books
- June 17 - Air France personnel strike begins
- June 18 - CIA chief William F. Raborn resigns - Richard Helms will be his successor
- June 20-July 1 - Charles De Gaulle visits Soviet Union
- June 21- Opposition leader Arthur Calwell injured when shot after attending a political meeting in Mosman, Sydney, Australia
- June 28 - In Argentina a Junta deposes president Arturo Umberto Illia in a coup and appoints general Juan Carlos Ongania to lead
- June 29 - Sailors' strike, organised by the National Union of Seamen ends in the United Kingdom
- June 29 - Vietnam War: US planes begin bombing Hanoi and Haiphong
- June 30 - France formally leaves NATO

July

- July 1 - Joaquin Balaguer becomes president of the Dominican Republic.
- July 3 - Rene Barrientos elected president of Bolivia
- July 4 - North Vietnam declares general mobilization
- July 4 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into law. The act goes into effect the following year.
- July 6 - Malawi becomes a republic
- July 7 - Conference of Warsaw Pact ends with a promise to support North Vietnam
- July 12 - Indira Gandhi visits Moscow
- July 12 - Zambia threatens to leave British Commonwealth because of British peace overtures to Rhodesia
- July 12 - US lieutenant major W.H. Whalen arrested for spying
- July 14 - Israeli and Syrian jet fighters fight over the Jordan River
- July 14 - In Chicago, Illinois, Richard Speck murders eight student nurses in their dormitory
- July 14 - Gwynfor Evans becomes member of Parliament for Carmarthen, the first Plaid Cymru MP in the UK.
- July 16 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson flies to Moscow to try to start peace negotiations about Vietnam War - Soviet Government refutes his ideas
- July 17 - Richard Speck arrested - he tries to commit suicide but fails
- July 18 - Gemini X lifts off for earth orbit with astronauts John Young and Michael Collins, setting a world altitude record of 474 miles.
- July 18 - The Hough Riots break out in Cleveland, Ohio, the city's first race riot.
- July 19 - Chinese delegate in Netherlands, Liu en-Tsiu, is declared persona non grata because of death of a Chinese engineer in unclear circumstances; there are claims that he was kidnapped and taken to the delegate's office
- July 22 - Chinese government announces Dutch delegate G. J. Jongejans persona non grata but tells him not to leave the country before group of Chinese engineers has left the Netherlands
- July 23 - Katangese troops in Stanleyville, Congo, revolt in support of the exiled minister Moise Tschombe. Mutiny lasts several weeks
- July 24 - U Thant visits Moscow
- July 26 - Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent
- July 28 - USA announces that U-2 reconnaissance plane has disappeared over Cuba
- July 29 - Nigerian army rebels and execute the head of state general Irons, Richard Steven Horvitz is born.
- July 30 - England beat West Germany 4-2 to win the World Cup at Wembley

August

- August 1 - Sniper Charles Whitman kills 13 from the University of Texas at Austin Main Building.
- August 1 - Military coup in Nigeria - general Yakubu Gowon takes over
- August 2 - Spanish government forbids overflights of British military aircraft
- August 5 - Martin Luther King leads a civil rights march in Chicago
- August 6 - Rene Barrientos takes office as the president of Bolivia
- August 6 - Bridge over the Tagus River in Lisbon, Portugal, is opened
- August 7 - Race riots occur in Lansing,Michigan.
- August 10 - East German court sentences Günter Laudahn to life imprisonment for espionage for USA
- August 10 - Lunar Orbiter 1, the first US spacecraft to orbit another world, is launched
- August 12 - In the Massacre of Braybrook Street, Harry Roberts, John Duddy and Jack Witney shoot dead three plain clothes policemen in London - they are later sentenced to life imprisonment
- August 13 - China begins Cultural Revolution
- August 13 - An earthquake in Turkey - 2394 dead, 10000 injured
- August 15 - Syrian and Israeli troops clash over Lake Genesaret for three hours
- August 15 - New York Herald Tribune stops publication
- August 16 - Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 are arrested.
- August 17 - Saudi Arabia and United Arab Republic begin negotiations in Kuwait to end the war in Yemen
- August 18 - Vietnam War: D Company, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be four times larger, at the Battle of Long Tan in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam
- August 19 - Earthquake in eastern Turkey destroys whole cities
- August 21 - Seven men sentenced to death in Egypt for anti-Nasser agitation
- August 22 - Formation of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW)
- August 26 - Riots in French Somaliland
- August 30 - France offers independence to French Somaliland

September

- September 1 - United Nations Secretary-General U Thant declares that he is not going to seek re-election because UN efforts in Vietnam have failed.
- September 6 - In Cape Town, the South African architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd is stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas during a parliamentary meeting
- September 7 - The final new episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show airs (the first episode aired on October 3, 1961).
- September 8 - "The Man Trap", the first episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek airs.
- September 9 - NATO decides to move SHAPE headquarters to Belgium.
- September 13 - Balthazar Johannes Vorster becomes new South African prime minister
- September 13 - TASS reports about clashes between members of the Chinese Communist Party and the Red Guard
- September 16 - In South Vietnam, Thich Tri Quang begins a 100-day hunger strike
- September 16 - Metropolitan Opera house opened in New York City
- September 18 - Valerie Percy, the 21 year old daughter of Senator Charles Percy, is stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the family mansion on Chicago's North Shore.
- September 19 - Scotland Yard arrests Ronald Edwards suspected of being involved of the great train robbery
- September 30 - October 1 (midnight) - Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer released from Spandau Prison
- September 30 - Botswana achieves independence.

October

- October 3 - Tunisia severs its diplomatic relations to United Arab Republic
- October 4 - Israel applies for the outer membership of EEC
- October 4 - Basutoland becomes independent and takes the name Lesotho
- October 5 - UNESCO signs the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers. This even is now celebrated as World Teachers' Day.
- October 7 - Soviet Union declares that all Chinese students must leave the country before the end of October
- October 11 - France and Soviet Union sign a treaty about cooperation in nuclear research
- October 14 - The city of Montreal inaugurates its metro system (see Montreal Metro)
- October 15 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill creating the United States Department of Transportation.
- October 17 - Lesotho and Botswana accepted to join United Nations
- October 21 – Aberfan disaster in South Wales, United Kingdom
- October 22 - British spy George Blake escapes from HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs prison; he is next seen in Moscow
- October 22 - Spain demands that United Kingdom stop military flights to Gibraltar - Britain says no the next day
- October 24 - Negotiations about the Vietnam War begin in Manila, Philippines
- October 25 - Military court in Jakarta sentences ex-foreign minister Subandrio to death
- October 25 - Spain closes its Gibraltar border against non-pedestrian traffic
- October 26 - NATO moves its HQ from Paris to Brussels
- October 27 - United Nations takes Namibia from South Africa
- October 28 - US artist Lynne Seemayer paints the Pink Lady, a 60-feet tall picture of a naked woman, above a tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road. Authorities have it painted over in November 3 (see [http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/pinklady.asp])
- October 29 - Guinean delegation en route to OAU meeting in Ethiopia is made hostages of Ghana government in Accra

November

- November 2 - The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States
- November 4 - The Arno river floods Florence, damaging many art treasures
- November 5 - 38 African states demand that United Kingdom use force against Rhodesian government
- November 6 - Lunar Orbiter 2 is launched.
- November 8 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
- November 11 - A mine kills three Israeli paratroopers on the West Bank border.
- November 11 - Spain declares general amnesty about crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War (effectively only for Falangists side)
- November 12 - Birthdate of Stuart King, popular American TV actor beginning in the 1990's.
- November 15 - Gemini program: Gemini 12, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean 600 km east of the Bahamas.
- November 15 - Harry Maurice Roberts, who had killed three policemen in August, is caught near London
- November 16 - US doctor Samuel Sheppard is acquitted in his second trial of murder of his pregnant wife in 1954
- November 17 - UN General Assembly decides to found United Nations Industrial Development Organization
- November 17 - Spectacular meteor shower of Leonids passes over Arizona at the rate of 2300 a minute for 20 minutes
- November 21 - Army crushes an attempted coup in Togo
- November 28 - Truman Capote's Black and White Ball - dubbed The Party of the Century - is held in New York City.
- November 30 - Barbados achieves independence.

December

- December 1 - Kurt Georg Kiesinger is elected Chancellor of West Germany
- December 1 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith negotiate on HMS Tiger in Mediterranean
- December 2 - U Thant agrees to serve a second term as UN Secretary general
- December 3 - Anti-Portuguese demonstrations in Macau. Curfew declared the next day
- December 7 - Syria offers weapons to rebels in Jordan
- December 7 - Barbados is accepted into United Nations
- December 16 - UN Security council approves oil embargo against Rhodesia
- December 17 - South Africa does not join the trade embargo against Rhodesia
- December 20 - Harold Wilson withdraws all his previous offers to Rhodesian government and announces that he agrees to the independence only after the founding of black majority government
- December 22 - Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith declares that he considers that Rhodesia is already a republic
- December 26 - The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach
- December 31 - Walter Ulbricht talks about negotiations about German unification
- December 31 - Thieves steal millions worth of paintings from Dulwich Art Gallery in London
- December 31 - Congolese government takes over the Union Minière du Haut Katanga.

Unknown dates

- Cultural Revolution declared in mainland China.
- In Burundi, King Mwambutsa IV is deposed by his son Ntare V, who is in turn deposed by prime minister Michel Micombero.
- Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found Black Panther Party.
- Haile Selassie visits Jamaica for the first time, meeting with Rastafarian leaders
- Konstantin Chernenko, later leader of Soviet Union, becomes candidate member of the Central Committee.
- Surrealist Movement in the United States founded by Franklin and Penelope Rosemont.
- Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn are awarded the Fermi Prize.
- Congress of the United States creates National Council for Marine Resources and Engineering Development.
- Martin Richards designs the BCPL programming language.
- The DKW automobile goes out of production.
- World Buddhist Sangha Council convened by Theravadins in Sri Lanka with the hope of bridging differences and working together.
- Long-term potentiation (LTP), the putative cellular mechanism of learning and memory, is first observed by Terje Lømo in Oslo, Norway.
- Actress Saira Banu marries actor Dilip Kumar.

Births

January-April

- January 1 - Michael Imperioli, American actor
- January 12 - Rob Zombie, American musician, artist, and writer
- January 13 - Patrick Dempsey, American actor
- January 17 - Shabba Ranks, Jamaican singer
- January 19 - Floris Jan Bovelander, Dutch field hockey player
- January 20 - Tracii Guns, American guitarist
- January 29 - Romário, Brazilian footballer
- February 1 - Michelle Akers, American soccer player
- February 6 - Rick Astley, British singer
- February 9 - Ellen van Langen, Dutch athlete
- February 11 - Stephen Gregory, American actor
- February 11 - Anthony Parker, American football player
- February 20 - Cindy Crawford, American model
- February 22 - Brian G

African American

An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. Many African Americans have European and/or Native American ancestry as well. The term refers specifically to black African ancestry; not, for example, to white or Arab African ancestry, such as Moroccan or white South African ancestry. Blacks from non-African countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Great Britain, or Australia are theoretically referred to by their nation of origin and not African American, but in general the assumption is that if you are black, you are "African American".

Nomenclature

The term "African American" has been in common usage in the United States since the late 1980s, when greater numbers of African Americans began to adopt the term self-referentially. Malcolm X favored the term "African American" over "Negro" and used the term at an OAAU (Organization of Afro American Unity) meeting in the early 1960s, saying, "Twenty-two million African-Americans - that's what we are - Africans who are in America." Former NBA player/coach Lenny Wilkens is another who used the term as a teenager when filling a job application. Many Blacks began to abandon the term "Afro-American", which had become popular in the 1960s and '70s, for "African-American," because they desired an unabbreviated expression of their African heritage that could not be mistaken or derided as an allusion to the afro hairstyle. The term became increasingly popular, and by the 1980s, Jesse Jackson and others pressed for its adoption and acceptance. Users of the term argued that "African-American" was more in keeping with the nation's immigrant tradition of so-called "hyphenated Americans", who were known by terms like "Irish-American", or "Chinese-American", "Polish-American"), which link people with their, or their ancestors', geographic points of origin. Terms used at various points in American history include Negroes, colored, Blacks and Afro-Americans. Negro and colored were common until the late 1960s, but are now less commonly used and considered derogatory. African American, Black and, to a lesser extent, Afro-American are used interchangeably today, but their precise meanings and connotations are in dispute. The term African American is sometimes problematic because of its imprecise cultural and geographic meaning. The term as originally applied refers to only those descended from a small number of colonial indentured servants and the estimated 500,000 Africans taken to British North America or the U.S. as slaves (of approximately 11 million Africans taken to the western hemisphere in general). In slightly broader usage, the term can include West Indian and Afro-Latino immigrants whose African ancestors also survived the Middle Passage or recent African immigrants/children of immigrants with American citizenship, but these groups tend to use the ethnic terms Latino or Hispanic, or identify themselves by their countries of origin (i.e., as Dominican or Jamaican instead of African American). The term does not include white, Indian or Arab immigrants from the African continent, as they are not generally considered 'Africans' by English-speaking people. The common interpretation of the term 'African American' is frequently, and controversially, challenged; including an infamous incident at a [http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/22/king.controversy.ap/ Nebraska High School] where a white South African student campaigned for a "Distinguished African American Student Award."

Current Demographics

Jamaican According to 2003 U.S. Census figures, some 37.1 million African Americans live in the United States, comprising 12.9 percent of the total population. At the time of the 2000 Census, 54.8 percent of African Americans lived in the South. In that year, 17.6 percent of African Americans lived in the Northeast and 18.7 percent in the Midwest, while only 8.9 percent lived in the western states. Almost 88 percent of African Americans lived in metropolitan areas in 2000. With over 2 million black residents, New York City had the largest black urban population in the United States in 2000. Among cities of 100,000 or more, Gary, Indiana, had the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. city in 2000, with 85 percent, followed closely by Detroit, Michigan, with 83 percent. Atlanta, Georgia, has a large African-American population of about 65 percent. The nation's capital, Washington, D.C., had a 60 percent Black population.

African American history

Main article: African American history Blacks in America, like their White counterparts, are composed of many diverse ethnic groups. Over 40 identifiable ethnic groups from 25 different kingdoms were sold to the United States during the Atlantic Slave trade. These people came from an area spanning from present day Senegal all the way to Democratic Republic of Congo. Over time, Africans in America formed a new and common identity focused on their mutual condition in America as opposed to cultural and historic ties to Africa. Africans were sold and traded into bondage and shipped to the American South from 1619. In 1662 Virginia, the following law mentioned hereditary slavery and tied it to being born of a slave mother; its wording suggests that "negroes" but not "Englishmen" could be enslaved, and it was apparently clarifying an existing legal status, rather than establishing a new one.

Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, be it therefore enacted and declared by the present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.

The 1662 law brought Virginia into line with Iberian laws that had been in effect since 1265. Over the next few decades, identical laws would be adopted throughout the British colonies. They would remain in effect until U.S. slavery ended over two centuries later. The new partus sequitur ventrem law had three long-term consequences. First, it set a psychological basis for popular culture's seeing slaves as less than fully human. Prior British common law had held that social status passed through the father; only livestock ownership had been matrilineal. Second, since biracial children of free mothers were free, it enabled the emergence of a population of legitimately freeborn Americans of mixed Afro-European ancestry who had no connection to slavery within living memory. Third, it meant that tens of thousands of future slaves would be genetically European, due to European alleles from free fathers gradually replacing African alleles from slave mothers, through random DNA mixing (meiosis) at each generation. Within two centuries, this would lead to such runaway slave advertisements as, "A beautiful girl, about twenty years of age, perfectly white, with straight light hair and blue eyes. — 1847 Hannibal MO," creating the never-to-be-resolved conflict in U.S. society between a dichotomous color line and the obvious fact of mixed heritage. In 1807, the importation of slaves by U.S. citizens became illegal, yet the practice continued. By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved Africans in the Southern United States, and another 500,000 Africans lived free across the country. Slavery was a controversial issue in American society and politics. The growth of abolitionism, which opposed the institution of slavery, culminated in the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, and was one reason for the secession of the Confederate States of America, which lead to the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 declared all slaves in the Confederacy free under U.S. law. It included exceptions for those held in all territories that had not seceded, however, and thus did not immediately free a single slave, since U.S. law held no sway over the Confederacy at the time. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, freed all slaves, including those in states that had not seceded. During Reconstruction, African Americans in the South obtained the right to vote and to hold public office, as well as a number of other civil rights they previously had been denied. However, when Reconstruction ended in 1877, southern, white landowners reinstituted a regime of disenfranchisement and racial segregation, and with it a wave of terrorism and repression, including lynchings and other vigilante violence. The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South that sparked the Great Migration of the early 20th century, combined with a growing African American intellectual and cultural elite in the Northern United States, led to a movement to fight violence and discrimination against African Americans that, like abolitionism before it, crossed racial lines. One of the most prominent of these groups, the NAACP, galvanized by outspoken journalist and activist Ida B. Wells Barnett, led an anti-lynching crusade. In the 1950s, the organization mounted a series of calculated legal challenges to overturn Jim Crow segregation, culminating in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision. The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board was one of defining moments of the modern-day Civil Rights Movement. It was part of a long-term strategy to strike down Jim Crow segregation in public education, the hospitality industry, public transportation, employment and housing, granting equal access to African Americans and ensuring their right to vote. The movement reached its peak in the 1960s under leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young, and Roy Wilkins, Sr. At the same time, Nation of Islam spokesman Malcolm X and, later, Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panther Party, and the Republic of New Africa called for African Americans to embrace black nationalism and black self-empowerment, propounding ideas of African (black) unity and solidarity and pan-Africanism.

Contemporary issues

Main article: African American contemporary issues Many African Americans significantly have improved their social and economic standing since the Civil Rights Movement, and recent decades have witnessed the expansion of a robust, African American middle class across the United States. However, due in part to a legacy of racism and discrimination, African Americans as a group remain at a pronounced economic, educational and social disadvantage relative to whites. Economically, the median income of African Americans is roughly 55 percent of that of European Americans. Persistent social, economic and political issues for many African Americans include inadequate health care access and delivery; institutional racism and discrimination in housing, education, policing, criminal justice and employment; crime; poverty; and substance abuse. African Americans are frequently the targets of racial profiling. They are also more likely to be incarcerated. African Americans also have higher prevalence of some chronic health conditions and out-of-wedlock births relative to the general population. These problems and potential remedies have been the subject of intense public policy debate in the United States in general, and within the African American community in particular.

Culture

Main article: African American culture African American culture is an amalgam of influences, including African, Caribbean, European, and Latino cultures. From its music and dance, to speech, demeanor, and foodways, African American culture bears the strong imprint of West Africa, particularly in rural portions of the Deep South and Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. African American music is one of the most pervasive African American cultural influences in the United States today. Hip hop, rock, R&B, funk, and other contemporary American musical forms evolved from blues, jazz, and gospel music. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a dialect of English spoken by many African Americans to varying degrees. African American authors have written many stories, poems, and essays influenced by their experiences as African Americans, and African American literature is a major genre in American literature. Famous examples include Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou.

The term African American

Political overtones

The term African American carries important political overtones. Previous terms used to identify Americans of African ancestry were conferred upon the group by whites and were included in the wording of various laws and legal decisions which became tools of white supremacy and oppression. There developed among blacks in America a growing desire for a term of their own choosing. With the political consciousness that emerged from the political and social ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Negro fell into disfavor among many African Americans. It had taken on a moderate, accommodationist, even Uncle Tomish, connotation. In this period, a growing number of blacks in the U.S., particularly African American youth, celebrated their blackness and their historical and cultural ties with the African continent. The Black Power movement defiantly embraced black as a group identifier—a term they themselves had repudiated only two decades earlier—a term often associated in English with things negative and undesirable, proclaiming, "Black is beautiful." In this same period, others favored the term Afro-American; this particular term never gained much traction, but by the 1990s, the term African American had emerged as the leading choice of self-referential term. Just as other ethnic groups in American society historically had adopted names descriptive of their families' geographical points of origin (such as Italian-American, Irish-American, Polish-American), many blacks in America expressed a preference for a similar term. Because of the historical circumstances surrounding the capture, enslavement and systematic attempts to de-Africanize blacks in the U.S. under chattel slavery, most African Americans are unable to trace their ancestry to a specific African nation; hence, the entire continent serves as a geographic marker. For many, African American is more than a name expressive of cultural and historical roots. The term expresses African pride and a sense of kinship and solidarity with others of the African diaspora—an embracing of the notion of pan-Africanism earlier enunciated by prominent African thinkers such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Dubois and, later, George Padmore. A discussion of the term African American and related terms can be found in the journal article "The Politicization of Changing Terms of Self Reference Among American Slave Descendants" in American Speech v 66 is 2 Summer 1991 p. 133-46.

Who is African American?

To be considered African American in the United States of America nowadays, not even half of one's ancestry need be black African. Since the early 20th century, the nation's answer to the question "Who is black?" has been that a "black" is any person with any known African ancestry. This definition reflects the experience with racism, white supremacy, slavery, and, later, with Jim Crow laws. But this definition was not always the case.

Antebellum Social Customs¹

Before 1690 or so, colonial social divisions reflected class (planters, craftsmen, forced laborers) and religion (Christians, "heathens") but did not emphasize ethnic origin. Afro-European intermarriage was common. The endogamous color line was invented in 1691 Virginia, when intermarriage was legislated to be a crime. Over the next 30 years, Afro-European intermarriage was outlawed throughout 12 of the 13 colonies (SC being the exception) and the terms Black and White took on today's meaning. For the next century and a half, as reflected in U.S. literature, popular culture, and court cases, Americans defined which side of the color line you were on by three rules: appearance, association, and blood fraction. Appearance meant that you would not be accepted as White if you looked African. Association meant that if your all friends were Black, then you would not be accepted as White even if you looked European. Blood fraction meant that if you had more than a statutory fraction of Black ancestry, then you could not become legally White even if you looked European and associated only with Whites. Although the three rules were formally documented and enforced by the courts, each rule’s details varied from state to state. For example, the same biracial person of mostly European ancestry might be seen as a light-skinned Black in Virginia, but White-looking in Spanish Florida and the French Gulf Coast. In Barbadian South Carolina, the rule of association was heavily influenced by wealth; money whitened as in today's Brazil. And the legal blood fraction limit ranged from 1/8 (as in North Carolina) to 1/2 (Ohio). During this period, hundreds of individuals, including famous ones like Jefferson's son Eston Hemmings, painter John James Audubon, and Florida's first U.S. senator David Levy Yulee, were socially accepted as White despite acknowledging slight Black ancestry (rather like Carol Channing today).