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

Intersectionality is on display at the California African American Museum with “Free and Queer,” a show that puts Black LGBTQ+ Californians at the center of the civil rights movement.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 3, 2026

In 2020, he became the first African American to take part on a long-duration mission to the ISS.

From Barron's • Mar. 25, 2026

The analysis included health data from 1,998 African American adults living in both urban and rural areas of Jackson, Mississippi, who participated in the Jackson Heart Study.

From Science Daily • Mar. 19, 2026

Noë Bryant spent 41 years identifying as African American.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 24, 2026

I prayed for the souls and families of physicist Dr. Ronald McNair, the second African American astronaut to go to space, and Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to become an astronaut.

From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson