The 57 Black men and women who served in the House of Representatives in 2021 accounted for 13% of the House’s total membership—about the same as the percentage of the nation’s overall population that was Black. But that same year, only 3 of the Senate’s 100 senators were Black, and not a single governor was Black.
This authoritative encyclopedia provides a wide-ranging survey of the history, development, and current state of African American political activism and influence in American life and culture. This book begins with a suite of seven long-form essays on various aspects of Black political involvement and empowerment, including the importance of Black women in early labor organizing; campaigns defending Black voting rights against suppression and disenfranchisement; the Black Lives Matter movement; and the contributions and legacy of the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama.
The encyclopedia itself contains approximately 200 authoritative entries on a wide assortment of topics related to African American political activism and empowerment, including biographical profiles of key leaders and activists, political issues and topics of particular interest to African American voters and lawmakers, important laws and court cases, influential organizations, and pivotal events in American culture that have influenced the trajectory of Black participation in the nation’s political life.
