This paper is concerned with the historical aspects of Black English in light of recent descriptive studies. Linguistic investigation has established the following points: (1) There is a Black English dialect; (2) Black English has systematic rules which differ from those of Standard English; (3) There are indications that lead to the conclusion that there are historical connections between Black English and coastal West African languages. Black English has a cohesive, structured grammatical system, i.e., it is a language system. According to the creolization theory, black people brought to the New World as slaves first learned a form of pidgin English. This theory postulates that Black English developed as a result of the following influences: language interference, nonstandard linguistic models, and isolation factors. The languages which are the most significant to the historical study of American black dialects are those which were spoken in the Guinea slave coast area; most of them are in the Niger-Congo language family. Black English has two perfective distinctions in its verb system which have no equivalents in Standard English. The grammatical characteristics common to Black English verbs also occur in West African languages. An immediate implication of this study is that the history of the English language must be broadened to include the Afro-American tradition. (CK)