African American

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

noun

1. an American with Black African ancestry.

adjective

1. of or relating to African Americans.
2. Af·ri·can-A·mer·i·can, 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 Note

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.

Usage

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of African American¹

An Americanism dating back to 1780–90