An important way in which the African American population has grown since 1980 is through immigration, largely from the Caribbean and Africa. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, the share of foreign-born Black people, mainly from these two source regions, grew from 3.1% of the Black population in 1980 to 8.7% in 2013 (Anderson 2015). In terms of numbers, this translates to a record 3.8 million foreign-born Black people who lived in the United States in 2013 (Anderson 2015). Moreover, by 2019, this value had grown to about 4.6 million, or approximately 10% of the US Black population, and it is projected to grow even further to about 9.5 million by 2060 (Tamir and Anderson 2022). It is also estimated that the Black immigrant population will account for about one-third of the growth of the overall US Black population through 2060 (Anderson and Tamir 2022).

The greatest number of Black immigrants arriving since 1980 have come from the Caribbean (Corra 2022). However, the number of immigrants from Africa is increasing at the fastest rate, steadily rising since 2000 (Elo et al. 2015: 1514). According to one analysis (Kent 2007), before 1980, Africans accounted for just 10% of the US Black foreign-born population. In the first six years of the 2000s, however, Africans accounted for the majority of Black people immigrating to the United States. Tamir and Anderson (2022) report that, between 2000 and 2019, the Black African immigrant population grew 246%, from roughly 600,000 to over two million. Black African immigrants now make up 42% of the overall foreign-born Black population, almost double this percentage in 2000 (Corra 2022). The title of a Pew Research Center analysis released in January 2022 (Tamir and Anderson 2022), “The Caribbean is the largest origin source of Black immigrants, but fastest growth is among African immigrants,” is unambiguously clear.

As a consequence of immigration from the Caribbean but especially from Africa, the Black community is becoming more diverse. Consider, for example, the religious composition of contemporary Black America. For much of US history, a majority of African Americans have identified themselves as Christian, with a large portion belonging to historically Black Protestant denominations like the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. And this pattern does continue today, with about two-thirds (66%) of Black Americans identifying themselves as Protestants. Yet continued diversity is the trend, with smaller, but growing numbers of Black people identifying as Catholics (about 6%), other Christian faiths (about 3%, mostly Jehovah’s Witnesses), and those identifying as belonging to the many non-Christian faiths, the most common of which is Islam (Pew Research Center, “Faith and Religion Among Black Americans,” 2021). Moreover, a sizable proportion of Black Americans (about 21%) indicate that they are religiously unaffiliated (Pew Research Center, “10 new findings about faith among Black Americans,” 2021).

To summarize, the African American population has experienced a notable growth and diversity in its composition. This growth has largely been due to immigration from Africa and the Caribbean. While such immigration has been predominantly from the Caribbean, much of the recent growth comes from African immigration. And African immigrants come from countries that are ethnically, politically, economically, and linguistically distinct. Such distinctions have led to diversity, including religious diversity, in the US African American community.