1094 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
imagery filled television, films, and advertising. Interracial marriage, at one
time banned in forty- two states, became more common and acceptable. Among
Asian- Americans, half of all marriages involved a non- Asian partner. The figure
for Latinos was 30 percent. Some commentators spoke of the “end of racism” and
the emergence of a truly color- blind society. Others argued that while Asians and
some Latinos were being absorbed into an expanded category of “white” Ameri-
cans, the black- white divide remained almost as impenetrable as ever.
One thing, however, seemed clear at the dawn of the twenty- first century:
diversity was here to stay. Because the birthrate of racial minorities is higher
than that of whites, the Census Bureau projected that by 2050, less than 50 per-
cent of the American population would be white.
The Changing Face of Black America
Compared with the situation in 1900 or 1950, the most dramatic change in
American life at the turn of the century was the absence of legal segregation
and the presence of blacks in areas of American life from which they had once
been almost entirely excluded. Thanks to the decline in overt discrimination
and the effectiveness of many affirmative action programs, blacks now worked
in unprecedented numbers alongside whites in corporate board rooms, offices,
and factories. The number of black policemen, for example, rose from 24,000
to 65,000 between 1970 and 2000, and in the latter year, 37 percent of the black
population reported having attended college. The economic boom of the late
1990s aided black Americans enormously; the average income of black families
rose more rapidly than that of whites.
One major change in black life was the growing visibility of Africans
among the nation’s immigrants. Between 1970 and 2010, more than twice
as many Africans immigrated to the United States as had entered during the
entire period of the Atlantic slave trade. For the first time, all the elements of
the African diaspora— natives of Africa, Caribbeans, Central and South Amer-
icans of African descent, Europeans with African roots— could be found in the
United States alongside the descendants of American slaves.
Nigeria, Ghana, and Ethiopia provided the largest number of African immi-
grants, and they settled overwhelmingly in urban areas, primarily in New York,
California, Texas, and the District of Columbia. Some were impoverished refu-
gees fleeing civil wars in Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia, but many more were
professionals— more than half the African newcomers had college educations,
the highest percentage for any immigrant group. Indeed, some African coun-
tries complained of a “brain drain” as physicians, teachers, and other highly
skilled persons sought opportunities in the United States that did not exist in
their own underdeveloped countries. While some prospered, others found it