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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

See Examples For:

African American African-American

In Tuskegee, a rural Alabama city with less than 9,000 people, over 80% of them African American, nearly one in three people live in poverty.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

In our Valley Stream, Long Island home, my youthful 80-year-old, African American mother and I — her Gen X son and facial clone — comment on each episode like armchair judges.

From Salon ● Jun. 15, 2026

The crew will be rounded out by African American Andre Douglas and US astronaut of Salvadoran descent Frank Rubio.

From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 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

This sent a clear message to lawmakers and future politicians and reestablished a feeling that seemed to have been lost when Harold Washington died: The African American vote mattered.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

“We’re doing very well with the Black jobs, African-American jobs,” he said.

From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026

“In the African-American community, we don’t want to talk about our financial situations enough. We don’t want to go into business with each other,” she said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026

"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

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

I’ve never felt American, I’ve only felt African-American.

From "Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago" by LeAlan Jones