This handbook provides a thorough treatment of the various mechanisms African Americans have used to participate in U.S. political affairs from the colonial era to the present. With contributions by several of the field's experts, this concise, provocative volume explores the evolution and current status of African American political action. Focusing on distinct types of activity (protest politics, grassroots movements, electoral politics, political office holding), it charts the unique development of African Americans as they progressed from enslavement by whites to empowerment as citizens to an ever-growing influence on elections. As the book vividly demonstrates, African Americans' efforts to act on their own political behalf didn't begin in the 1960s. Even while enslaved, black people courageously launched petitions, instigated strikes on plantations, and staged full-blown revolts, creating a legacy of activism that expanded through the abolition movement, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, the post-World War II civil rights movement, and into the present.

This volume considers how Black activism in Latin America has taken place in varying arenas such as in the academy, digital platforms, and traditional forms of activism. Contributors also examine the impact of activism on policy advocacy and legislation, as well as groups who the Black Lives Matter movement focus on such as women and immigrants. The first part of the book focuses on making Black Lives Matter in academic studies, governmental data, and politics. The next section focuses on the impact of Black activism on policy and legislation in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. Black activists have been fighting for Black lives throughout Latin America and their struggles have not been in vain, although less policy change has occurred in Peru. The last section finds that social media has allowed for more independent forms of Black activism in Brazil and Cuba.