Black British are British people of Black and African heritage, including those of African-Caribbean background, and people with mixed ancestry. The term has been used from the 1950s to refer to Black people from former British colonies in the West Indies (i.e., the New Commonwealth) and Africa, who are residents of the United Kingdom and consider themselves British. Others are also from former French-speaking colonies in Africa such as Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which was Belgian), and many Black Africans in Britain speak French as well as their own native languages.
The term "black" has historically had a number of applications as a racial and political label, and may be used in a wider sociopolitical context to encompass a broader range of non-European ethnic minority populations in Britain, though this is a controversial and non-standard definition.
Black British is used as an official category in UK national statistics ethnicity classifications.
The black population has increased from 1.1 million to over 1.8 million from 2001 to 2011, a growth of 40%. The UK has the second-largest black population in Europe, after France.
Read more about Black British: Terminology, Notable Black Britons
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or british:
“Media mystifications should not obfuscate a simple, perceivable fact; Black teenage girls do not create poverty by having babies. Quite the contrary, they have babies at such a young age precisely because they are poor—because they do not have the opportunity to acquire an education, because meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms of recreation are not accessible to them ... because safe, effective forms of contraception are not available to them.”
—Angela Davis (b. 1944)
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