The Influence of Africans on American Culture

Abstract

Africans have, since the early settlement of America, influenced the nation's language, manners, religion, literature, music, art, and dance. One of our most crucial ur ban problems, the Negro low-status family, may have Afri can origins. In the realm of politics, the civil rights fight in America from its origin has been linked to the struggle for Af rican freedom, and American Negro intellectuals have identi fied with African culture from the beginning of the century, an identification accelerated since 1956 with the formation of the International Society of African Culture and the American So ciety of African Culture. American Negro leadership has col lectively thrown its considerable political weight on the side of African freedom, and black nationalist organizations have kept up a noisy gadfly agitation. In the midst of this, America must deal with a considerable African presence in the United Nations.