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Title: Africans in America (In America) by Ayanna Hart, Earl Spangler, Rudolf Steiner, A. P. Porter ISBN: 0-8225-1952-6 Publisher: Lerner Publications Company Pub. Date: July, 1995 Format: Library Binding Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.93

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: The story of the "immigrants" who came to the U.S. in chains
Comment: If there is one group that is largely ignored in the story of immigration to the United States it would be those who came from Africa, mainly because a distinction is traditionally drawn between those who came to the New World of their own free will and those who were brought as slaves to serve in bondage. I thought that perhaps this volume in the In America series would deal with 20th century immigration from sub-Sahara African nations to the U.S., but Ayanna Hart and Earl Spangler are indeed telling the story of the millions of African people who traveled to the Americas in chains over the three centuries of the slave trade.

"Africans in America" provides a brief look at the ancient homelands of Nubia, Egypt, Malia and other great African civilizations and what slavery was like in the United States. After chapters devoted to how slavery lead to the Civil War the authors detail the fragile freedom that existed during Reconstruction. The story of African American immigration from the cotton fields of the South to the industrial cities of the North is seen as being the beginning of substantive changes, epitomized by the Harlem Renaissance. With World War II providing new opportunities, Hart and Spangler try to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement in a single chapter. The final chapter looks at the barriers and building blocks of the current struggle for racial equality and lists the contributions of African Americans to life in this country. However, unlike the same section you will find in other books in this series, this one looks at contemporary figures in politics, entertainment, and sports. You will read about Frederick Douglass and Jackie Robinson in earlier chapters, and read about Barry Bonds and Whitney Houston at the end.

Granted, slavery is indeed the way by which the ancestors of most African Americans came to the United States, but dealing with this entire issue in a book this short is rather problematic. Of course, this is a major aspect of American history and it is hard to take about the assimilation of their particular group of "immigrants" without dealing with the omnipresent racism and prejudice that existed. But I still would have liked to have a book that talked about immigrants who came to the U.S. from Africa after the end of slavery, and especially in the last half of the 20th century. One of the chief values of these books it that they show young readers how the immigration of particular groups is unique, in terms of why they came to the U.S. and what happened once they arrived. Consequently, there is still a story to be told about Africans immigrating to America that is not really touched by this book.