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• African American
  African American

  noun

  an American with Black African ancestry.
• African-American
  African-American

  noun

  an American of African descent

African American

American  

[af-ri-kuhn uh-mer-i-kuhn] / ˈæf rɪ kən əˈmɛr ɪ kən /

Sometimes Aframerican

noun

1. an American with Black African ancestry.

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adjective

1. of or relating to African Americans.

2. African-American, occurring between the United States and Africa.

   Several international charities are promoting African-American cooperation in expanding access to safe drinking water.

African-American British  

noun

1. an American of African descent

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adjective

1. of or relating to Americans of African descent

Usage

During the 1980s, many Americans sought to display pride in their immigrant origins. Linguistically, this brought about a brief period of short-form hyphenated designations, like Italo-Americans and Greco-Americans. The Black community also embraced the existing term Afro-American, a label that emphasized geographical or ethnic heritage over skin color. The related label, African American, also saw an increase in use among activists in the 1970s and 1980s. African American was even more widely adopted in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s after high-profile Black leaders advocated for it, arguing, as Jesse Jackson did, that the term brought “proper historical context” and had “cultural integrity.” See Black ¹.

This is the currently preferred term in the US for people of African ancestry

Etymology

Origin of African American

An Americanism dating back to 1780–90

Example Sentences

"For an African-American that started playing soccer at 12 years of age, to make it to not just the national team but the World Cup and start - you can't even write that," he says.

From BBC • Jun. 6, 2026

A statue of him stands in Morningside Park; at the time of its unveiling in 1988, it was the largest public statue of an African-American in the country.

From Salon • May 31, 2026

All subjects were born to African-American and Latino mothers and had detectable levels of CPF in their umbilical cord blood.

From Science Daily • May 21, 2026

Buddy Bradley was the African-American choreographer who envisioned these moves and instilled in Matthews, a nervous performer, the confidence she needed.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 20, 2026

But Hitler’s superior Aryan-race theories were shattered by a young African-American college student named Jesse Owens, who won an unprecedented four gold medals in track events.

From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti