【正确答案】正确答案： The majority of African Americans, or called Black people, descend from slaves who were either sold as prisoners of war by African states or kidnapped directly by Europeans or Americans. They are treated not like human beings but like things, commodities to be traded and used to enrich others. Slave owners commonly regarded the slaves as "talking tools", something less than human. That is how Black people were treated for the first 250 years in American. African-American history of black people struggled to maintain their humanity during the slave trade and slaves" suffering through the Civil War, the beginning of Reconstruction as well as the Civil Rights movement. This tells a compelling story of survival, struggle and triumph over adversity. During the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century, racial segregation and racially motivated violence relegated African-Americans to second-class citizenship. The enslavement and exploitation of Black people has been a big part of building up the wealth and power that the rulers of this country have in their hands. Since the Civil Rights movement, African Americans have significantly improved their social and economic status and recent years have witnessed the expansion of a robust and vigorous African-American middle class across the United States. In the post-civil rights era, African-Americans have gained the unprecedented access to higher education and employment except being as representatives in the highest level of American government. Nevertheless, due in part to the legacy of slavery, racism and discrimination, African-Americans as a group remain at a inferior position to white Americans in terms of economy, education and social system such as inadequate health care access and delivery, institutional racism and discrimination in housing, education, policing, criminal justice and employment, crime, poverty as well as abuse and so on.