African American Booklist: Statistics and Data

African American population by different subjects.

Based at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Journalist’s Resource examines news topics through a research lens. We surface scholarship relevant to media practitioners, bloggers, educators, students and general readers.

The criminal justice system is heavily impacted by the bias of police mentality, as well as outdated judicial precedents. It is largely driven by racial disparities, which directly obstruct and deconstruct our minority communities...

Data from U.S. government sources show a mixed picture of the racial and ethnic gaps among whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics over the past several decades. We’ve tracked and categorized the areas where the white-black racial gap has narrowed, widened or remained roughly the same. Hispanic and Asian data is also included in years available. Our full report, “King’s Dream Remains an Elusive Goal; Many Americans See Racial Disparities” and graphic slideshow of key findings present full results from our demographic analysis and August 2013 survey on the topic of racial equality.

The second half of 2020 was marked by protests against police brutality, a rising death toll from COVID-19, and a historic general election. The economy began its slow recovery from the worst of the pandemic-induced recession, with financial markets showing particular strength—however, the labor market showed rising racial inequality, underlining just how disparate experiences of the recovery have been.

African American population snapshot including detailed demographic profile.