How Black Americans View Success in the U.S.

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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February 8, 2024

BY KHADIJAH EDWARDS, Pew Research Center

Most Black Americans consider themselves at least somewhat successful (66%). When asked to define what success means to them personally, 82% of Black adults point to the ability to provide for their family.

However, success isn’t exclusively related to financial achievements, a new Pew Research Center survey finds. Majorities of Black adults also cite quality-of-life measures such as personal happiness (80%), having enough time to do the things they want to do (65%) and having a job or career they enjoy (56%). A related analysis finds that most Black adults say they are at least somewhat happy and have enough time to do the things they want to do at least sometimes.

Roughly half of Black adults also say owning their own home (52%) and using their talents and resources to help others (50%) are essential to their personal definition of success.

Yet many of the measures Black adults use to define success are also major sources of pressure in their lives.

[…]

Although many Black adults experience similar levels of financial pressure, particular subgroups experience more financial insecurity than others. For example, Black adults with lower family incomes are more likely than those with middle or upper incomes to rate their personal financial situation negatively (78% vs. 57% and 29%, respectively).

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