12 States With the Highest Percentage of African American Population

Can the states with the highest percentage of African American population be considered more tolerant than the rest? Let’s analyze that, shall we?

While racism in America has come a long way since the days of slavery, the phenomena now exhibits itself in more subtle ways. I mean just the fact that only 39% of White Americans consider racism in the country a very serious issue, as opposed to 66% of non-whites, in itself is a manifestation of this problem if you ask me. Dismissing a pressing issue is the absolute worst thing one can do to mitigate it. As everyone, including me, expected, hatred among races has gone up ever since Trump moved into the White Houses, or at least 63% of Americans think it has. The 35 worst, most dangerous, ghettoest cities in America in 2017 also stand testament to the fact that crime is flourishing in areas where minority groups reside. It is ironic that the country that finally accepted an African American as its president has now moved on to one that is widely considered as a bigot. Other countries are fighting their own battles though. If you want more information on black population in other countries, check out 11 countries with the highest black population outside Africa.

Even in this day and time, blacks are not treated fairly in one out of every five job interviews, and we thought we were far beyond workplace racism, didn’t we? It seems we are ignorant to a lot of things when it comes to this matter. Let’s consider Louisiana, for example, that holds a very high spot on our list of states with the highest percentage of Black population, but has also been considered the most racist according to an analysis of tweets conducted by Abodo, based on the overall derogatory language used in tweets. The state was also ranked number 3 in anti-Black tweets. So to answer the question I posed above, the percentage of Black population did not make Louisiana more tolerant. Whereas Montana, that is the whitest state in the US with only 0.6% of its population Black, is among the states with the least derogatory language and Idaho, the second whitest (o.8% Black population), had the least number of anti-Black tweets.

The total African American population in 2016 amounted to 42,975,959 as per the 2016 estimates of the US Census Bureau. If we analyze Black population by state 2016 in absolute figures, Texas tops the list with 3.5 million Black people residing within its boundaries, making it the state that has the largest Black population, while the states with the lowest black population were Wyoming and Vermont with 7,612 and 8,120 African American citizens respectively. On the other hand, an analysis of White population by state yielded that California has the most White people living in it in absolute terms, i.e. 28.5 million.

We, of course, did not rely on absolute figures to construct our list of states with the highest percentage of African American population. Using the Census Bureau data once again, we ranked the states based on the percentage of African-American population in relation to the total population. Let’s finally list them down:

12. Tennessee

Percentage of African American population: 17.1%

We begin our list with the southern state of Tennessee which houses around 1.2 million African Americans.

11. New York

Percentage of African American population: 17.7%

New York has the second highest number of African American citizens in the US amounting to 3,494,916. However, this huge number could only constitute 17.7% of the entire population of the state.

10. Virginia

Percentage of African American population: 19.8%

Virginia, the state that gave us eight US presidents, including George Washington, has a black population percentage of almost 20%.

9. North Carolina

Percentage of African American population: 22.2%

North Carolina, with over 2 million Black citizens, is not the only Carolina that made our list of states with the highest percentage of African American population. Its Southern counterpart will appear further on.

8. Delaware

Percentage of African American population: 22.6%

The Diamond State just barely beat North Carolina with a lead of merely 0.4%. This small difference might be the cause of it falling behind in later years.

7. Alabama

Percentage of African American population: 26.8%

The Yellowhammer State comes in at number 7 on our list of states with the highest percentage of African American population, with around 1.3 million Blacks living here.

6. South Carolina

Percentage of African American population: 27.5%

We now move on to South Carolina where the Columbia metropolitan area is the biggest when it comes to African American population.

5. Maryland

Percentage of African American population: 30.7%

Maryland has more than 1.9 million black citizens, which form 30.7% of its entire population.

4. Georgia

Percentage of African American population: 32.0%

Georgia has seen quite an upsurge in its number of Black citizens from 2005 to 2011, an increase of 400,000 African Americans to be exact.

3. Louisiana

Percentage of African American population: 32.6%

Yet another Southern state on our list of states with the highest percentage of African American population, Louisiana has grabbed the number 3 spot with quite a hefty percentage of the Black population to its name.

2. Mississippi

Percentage of African American population: 37.7%

With a big jump of 5%, we land at Mississippi, home to the Jackson Metropolitan Area, which has the highest percentage of Blacks of any such area in America. And finally, the time has come to reveal to you what state has the highest percentage of black population.

1. District of Columbia

Percentage of African American population: 47.7%

Even though it’s not technically a state, we still included District of Columbia on our final list due to it being a federally-administered territory in the United States. And it surely deserves to be here as it’s the only place among the states with the highest percentage of African American population that comes even close to having half a population of Blacks.