African American

Sometimes Af·ra·mer·i·can

[af-ri-kuhn uh-mer-i-kuhn]

noun

1. an American with Black African ancestry.

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

noun

1. an American of African descent

adjective

1. of or relating to Americans of African descent

Usage

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

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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of African-American¹

An Americanism dating back to 1780–90

Example Sentences

When African Americans migrated west, L.A. was wide open, a physical and spiritual landscape with space to build the social order anew.

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Ms. Foggie-Barnett, who knew Harris well, says in the catalog, “His mission was not only to cover the news but also to simultaneously counter the stereotypes African Americans were subjected to in the traditional press.”

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Four years later, at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, all nuance was gone; the version of Jefferson on display became a denigrating demonstration of hypocrisy.

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He later interviewed nearly two dozen historians of African American art history and visual culture studies to pinpoint collective needs.

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He added that he “wouldn’t have been elected mayor if not for African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Jews and progressive whites all coming together.”

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