African Americans in California

African American Californians, or Black Californians are residents of the state of California who are of African ancestry. According to 2019 United States Census Bureau estimates, those identified solely as African American or black constituted 5.8% or 2,282,144 residents in California. Including an additional 1.2% who identified as having partial African ancestry, the figure was 7.0% (2.8 million residents). As of 2021, California has the largest multiracial African American population by number in the United States. African Americans are the fourth largest ethnic group in California after Hispanics, white people, and Asians. Asians outnumbered African Americans in the 1980s.

The Black community is prevalent in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, and Solano Counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento County, and San Joaquin County. In Southern California, the population is concentrated in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego Counties.

California also has a growing Afro-Caribbean and African immigrant population to the United States. Most African immigrants in California come from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Many Ethiopians live in Little Ethiopia in West Los Angeles. California has one of the highest concentrations of black Africans in the Western United States. 41,249 Afro-Asians live in California. There is a Blaxican community in California. There is also a growing Blaxican population in Los Angeles. California claimed 113,255 African-born residents in 2000. The majority came from Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa. There is also a sizable Jamaican, Haitian, Caribbean, Afro-Latino, and Belizean population in California. There is also a small Bahamian, Barbadian, Bermudan, British West Indian, Dutch West Indian, and Trinidadian population in California.

The earliest black residents were the first pioneers of Alta California and were Afro-Latino slaves (or mulatto) brought by the Spanish. African Americans (and Louisiana Creole) migrated from Southern states like Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas to California during the Second Great Migration (1940s–1970s).

The Black population in California has been declining since 2016, and moving out of the state along with Whites. Gentrification in California has caused some African Americans in California to become homeless and has pushed them out of historical urban centers like Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and into new cheaper suburban regions, like East Contra Costa, Inland Empire, and Central Valley. For example, many blacks from Los Angeles have moved to desert areas such as Palmdale and Lancaster in the 1990s. The black population in Los Angeles County has been rapidly declining. The black population has also declined in San Francisco. African Americans have the second highest poverty rate in California, after Hispanics. This has caused many blacks from California to move back to the Southern United States.

The black population has decreased in many neighborhoods and cities in California. Many areas such as Compton, Inglewood, and Watts that were once predominately black are now predominately Latino. Many Mexicans and Central Americans have displaced them in their historical areas. In 2019, African Americans were more likely to become homeless in California.

There is also a black foreign born population from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in California. 3% of black people in California are noncitizens, and 4% are naturalized immigrants. African Americans mainly live in Los Angeles, the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento. Solano County has the highest black percentage by county. Cities with the largest black population in the San Francisco Bay Area are African Americans in the Bay Area are Oakland, Vallejo, Antioch, Suisun City and Richmond.