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Tennessee
The state entry: 1.1 million Black residents, 15.8% of the state, in the published 2020 count.
Tennessee holds about 1.25 million Black residents — Black alone or in combination — nearly one in five of its people, with Black alone at about 1.13 million, or 16 percent. The state's Black population has two capitals: Memphis, profiled in the cities section, the South's great Black-majority city on its western river edge; and Nashville, the state capital, whose cluster of Black institutions — Fisk University, Meharry Medical College, Tennessee State — is unmatched by any city its size in the nation. Between them runs a Black geography of river towns, tobacco and cotton counties, and two smaller metros. This article profiles the state population.
Civic Snapshot
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total population, 2020 | 6,910,840 |
| Black residents (alone), 2020 | 1,092,948 |
| Black share of the state, 2020 | 15.8% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1 (race). Trend: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1.
Population Trend
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, the Black population of Tennessee grew from 1,057,315 to 1,092,948 (+3.4%), and its share of the whole moved from 16.7% to 15.8%.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1 (race). Trend: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1.
The Record
West Tennessee holds the state's Black center of gravity. Memphis and Shelby County — where Black residents are close to half the county population — dominate, surrounded by the cotton counties of the Tennessee Delta fringe: Lauderdale, Tipton, Haywood, Fayette, and Hardeman, where Black shares run from a quarter to near half, in a plantation-era demography continuous with the Mississippi Delta across the state line. Jackson, the region's hub city, is more than two-fifths Black. The west is the state's oldest Black geography, its population rooted in the cotton economy and its institutions — LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis among them — founded in the emancipation generation.
Institutions
For the institutions of Black Tennessee, read downward: the gazetteer carries them in its county and place entries, place by place. This page frames the whole — 1.1 million Black residents, 95 counties and county equivalents, 504 incorporated and census-designated places, all in the published counts.