ABSTRACT
According to the 1990 US Census, there were 29,986,000 African Americans in the United States. Blacks thus made up 12 percent of the total population of 248,710,000. The historical legacy of slavery continues to affect where African Americans live at the end of the 20th century. The largest populations of African Americans are in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Income is one: nowhere in the United States is the median African American family income equal to that of the white family. Although African Americans have made tremendous strides in the struggle for equality in the United States, demographic evidence suggests blacks still lag behind in significant areas. Twenty-nine percent of black families live below the poverty line while only 11 percent of white families do. The rate of infant mortality for African Americans is more than twice as high as for whites, and blacks attain 11.5 years of education compared to 12.5 years for whites.
