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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

Raised in Harlem, the epicenter of African American culture, Rollins recalled that his early musical education came from the Apollo Theater where he would watch its celebrated amateur nights.

From Barron's • May 26, 2026

Many projects, like the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and African American history museum, began as the deferred dreams of ordinary citizens.

From Slate • May 18, 2026

“Drag Race” is the source of quite a bit of modern slang terminology, lifted from decades of African American Vernacular English, posted online, and co-opted to fit just about anything.

From Salon • May 10, 2026

As Marvin-Alonzo Greer, a former supervisor of the site’s African American History Initiative, said, “If you wanted to understand who actually lived there, how the town functioned, you took a carriage ride.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026

Members of the newly formed all-black Delta Sigma Theta sorority of Howard College also joined the procession, knowing that if they didn’t stand up for their rights, African American women would undoubtedly be left behind.

From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler