Did any African Americans perish on the Titantic?

There were no African-Americans on the Titanic.

"Just as a sidelight, there were no African-Americans on board the Titanic."

The Galano Club: The Unsung Heroes of the Titanic
http://my.execpc.com/~reva/html3c5.htm

The only black person who died when the Titanic sank was not an
American. He was a Haitian man named Joseph Laroche:

"Mr Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was born in Cap Haitien, Haiti
on 26 May 1886. In 1901, at age 15, he left Haiti and travelled to
Beauvais, France, where he hoped to join the high school to study
engineering... Joseph decided to return to Haiti to find a
better-paying engineering job, the move being planned for 1913... On
April 10 the Laroche family took the train from Paris to Cherbourg in
order to board the brand new liner later that evening.

Joseph - who is thought to have been the only black passenger on the
Titanic - died in the sinking but his family were saved, possibly in
lifeboat 14."

Encyclopedia Titanica: Passenger Biographies
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/bio/p/2nd/laroch_j.shtml

You can read more about Joseph Laroche and his family here:

Stories from the Titanic: The Story of the LaRoches
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/6683/laroche.html

FindArticles: What Happened To The Only Black Family On The Titanic
http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_8_55/ai_62685041

Google search strategy:

Google Web Search: "the titanic" "african american OR americans"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=titanic+%22african+american+OR+americans

I hope this information is useful. If anything is unclear, please
request clarification; I'll be glad to offer further assistance before
you rate my answer.

Best regards,
pinkfreud

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Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 25 May 2004 23:08 PDT

My friend and colleague denco-ga has suggested that you may be
interested in the story at the bottom of this page, "The Toast of the
Titanic Oral Tradition Carries On Legend of Lone African American By
Dana Hull, Washington Post, December 20, 1997":

http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/filmnotes/titanica/titanic.html

Just to add to pinkfreud's fine answer, several years ago I read "Down
with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster," by
Steven Biel:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393316769/qid=1085456358/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4720813-4584053?v=glance&s=books

The book includes lyrics from African-American folk songs that noted
with sad irony that no African-Americans had died on the Titanic
because they weren't even considered good enough to be steerage
passengers or work on the crew.

Btw, I'm amazed by pinkfreud's report of Mr. Laroche. I had never
heard of a black passenger on the Titanic ever before, and I wonder
why that isn't more widely known. (But I'm not at all surprised that
it was pinkfreud who found that very obscure fact.)