Black in the United States: Potential and reality collide

CHARLOTTE MECKLENBURG LIBRARY

Black Americans – native-born or naturalized immigrants like these people at a 2024 citizenship ceremony in Charlotte, navigate a country that has often treated people of African descent as second-class citizens while holding hope for advancement and a better life.

As the United States prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, Black Charlotteans are reflecting on what the experience looks like for them. 

They are both proud and disappointed.

Tamika Williams, a 51-year-old truck driver, said she believes this country has fallen short when it comes to equity, erasing history and the overall quality of life that Black Americans have dealt with. She said those experiences are ultimately why she and her family plan to move out of the country.

“I don't feel so great,” she said. “America has definitely shown me that this is not the land of the free, especially for a Black woman or Black man, in my opinion. I have traveled to other countries and got more respect without the racial profiling that I've encountered and endured living here in America.”

America’s relationship to people of African descent is complicated. At the nation’s founding in 1776, slavery was prevalent in all 13 colonies, consigning an estimated 500,000 Black people – a quarter of the country’s population – to bondage while the nation’s founders declared “All men are created equal” upon independence from England. The Constitution, ratified in 1787, declared enslaved Africans as three-fifths human.

Some of the nation’s darkest legacies – racial terror violence, segregation by law and social custom as well as economic inequity – continue, although progress  has been halting but measurable. 

Williams said after traveling abroad she saw a contrast when it comes to how she was treated. This sparked a realization that she will never be seen as an equal in the U.S. In 2020, Williams visited Ghana for the first time and said that not being in the minority and welcomed as an equal was a culture shock. 

“I actually fit in – that's where I found my peace,” she said. “Over here in America, it's almost like you're on pins and needles.” 

Williams isn’t alone in her view on race. In a 2024 Pew Research study, 75% of Black adults surveyed reported they have experienced racial discrimination, with 13% saying it impacted them regularly and 62% reporting from time to time. Most said those experiences make them feel like the system is set up for their failure. Many also say Black people have to work harder to achieve success.

Eighty percent of Black Americans 65 years of age and older say they experience racial discrimination, compared to 71% of Black adults under 30, 76% of people age 30-49 (76%) and 75% of respondents age 50-64. Black men 50 and older (82%) were most likely to say they face racial discrimination compared with 73% of men under 50 and 75% of Black women of any age.

Christopher Massey said he finds opportunity in America and believes the country has been fair to him through its ups and downs.

“I don’t get stereotyped, he said. “I know some people have, but thank God, I have never experienced it,” Massey said. “I feel like it's an opportunity out here. There's money out here. I love being Black.”
Leroy Shingu, 31, who works in the music and film industry, contends the Black experience is about having to constantly explain yourself and that two people can experience the same thing and have two different perspectives.

“Being Black in America is having enough stories for a lifetime and still being expected to explain the joke to everybody else,” he said. “We get good at reading rooms, reading faces, reading what wasn’t said. We had to be translators before communicators for survival.”

According to Pew, 77% of Black adults born in the U.S. are more likely than Black immigrants (65%) to say experiencing racism made them feel angry. Also, 80% of Black adults who went to college – regardless of their degree level – are more likely than those with a high school diploma or less (70%) to agree. 

Black Americans have influenced everything from music and fashion to language, entertainment and pop culture. Shingu focused on how Black culture is constantly appropriated by the larger culture and the people who created it are often not credited.

“This country will borrow your flow bar for bar and not understand your story,” he said. “It’ll quote your slang, wear your style, play your music, and still ask you to explain.” 

Despite going through the challenges of feeling American and still having to explain Black culture and navigating expectations, Shingu said he is proud of what Black Americans have been able to hold on to.

“We’ve always been experts at making life liveable,” he said. “Turning our struggle into language. Turning language into culture. Turning culture into something undeniable that eventually it’s a part of everyone’s everyday life.

“Black people still managed to keep our humor, our style, our music, our family traditions, and our ability to make something out of nothing.”

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