The 2010 census found that the population and percentage of people who said they were both black and white more than doubled in a decade. According to a statement, the population grew “from about 785,000 in 2000 to 1.8 million in 2010. This group’s share of the multiple-race black population increased from 45 percent in 2000 to 59 percent in 2010.”
The Census Bureau released its 2010 figures on black and white racial demographics in America, and held a telephone press conference about it on Sept. 29.
The majority of black people live in the South, and 60 percent of black Americans are concentrated in 10 states, according to census data. They are “New York (3.3 million), Florida (3.2 million), Texas (3.2 million), Georgia (3.1 million), California (2.7 million), North Carolina (2.2 million), Illinois (2.0 million), Maryland (1.8 million), Virginia (1.7 million) and Ohio (1.5 million).”
Florida, Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina all had greater than 20 percent growth in the black population.
The place with the highest percentage of black people was the District of Columbia at 52 percent. It is treated as a state in the census.
Outside of the South, the greatest concentrations of black people are in urban or metropolitan places. A majority—62 percent—of all counties in the United States have only 5 percent of their population identified as black or black mixed with another group.
While the percentage and numbers of black and black and white mixed people grew in The South, their numbers declined in the Northeast and Midwest. A greater proportion of black Americans in the West were mixed, compared to those in other regions.
The Census Bureau defined black people as those who marked the box “black or African-American.” Those who marked only that box are considered the black alone population, and could be counted as the minimum number of black people in America. Those who chose both black and another of the six categories offered, may also be counted as black people, and are defined as members of the combination group. According to a Census Bureau statement, “Another way to think of the black alone-or-in-combination population is the total number of people who reported black, whether or not they reported any other races.”
