Editing African Americans (section)

===General===
[[File:"Afro-Americans" float in Golden Potlatch parade, Seattle, July 1911 (MOHAI 5590).jpg|thumb|left|This parade float displayed the word "Afro-Americans" in 1911.]]
The term ''African American'' was popularized by [[Jesse Jackson]] in the 1980s,<ref name="wilkersonnyt">{{Cite news|last1=Wilkerson|first1=Isabel|date=January 31, 1989|title='African-American' Favored By Many of America's Blacks|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/31/us/african-american-favored-by-many-of-america-s-blacks.html|access-date=December 28, 2020|issn=0362-4331|quote=A movement led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to call blacks African-Americans has met with both rousing approval and deep-seated skepticism in a debate that is coming to symbolize the role and history of blacks in this country. ... The question of a name has caused pain and controversy since the first Africans were captured and shipped to the Americas in the 17th century. The slaves called themselves Africans at first, but slave masters gave them English names and called them Negroes, the Portuguese word for black, historians say. That term was resented by some blacks who said it was degrading when whites mispronounced it, accidentally or intentionally.}}</ref> although there are recorded uses from the 18th and 19th centuries,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schuessler |first=Jennifer |date=2015-04-20 |title=Use of 'African-American' Dates to Nation's Early Days |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/arts/use-of-african-american-dates-to-nations-early-days.html |access-date=2024-02-12 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> for example, in post-emancipation holidays and conferences.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Times-Picayune 29 Nov 1885, page Page 3 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-picayune-african-american-day/65889728/ |access-date=2024-02-12  |website=Newspapers.com |date=1885 |page=3 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Evening Herald 09 May 1884, page 1 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-herald-african-american-conferen/171531828/ |access-date=2024-02-12 |website=Newspapers.com |date=1884 |page=1 |language=en}}</ref> Earlier terms also used to describe Americans of African ancestry referred more to skin color than to ancestry. Other terms (such as ''[[colored]]'', ''[[person of color]]'', or ''[[negro]]'') were included in the wording of various laws and legal decisions which some thought were being used as tools of [[White supremacy]] and [[oppression]].<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/outofmouthsofsla00john|url-access=registration|title=Out of the Mouths of Slaves: African American Language and Educational Malpractice|author=Baugh, John|page=[https://archive.org/details/outofmouthsofsla00john/page/86 86]|publisher=[[University of Texas Press]]|isbn=978-0-292-70873-0|year=1999}}</ref>

[[File:Michelle Obama official portrait crop.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Michelle Obama]] was the [[First Lady of the United States]]; she and her husband, President Barack Obama, are the first African Americans to hold these positions.]]

A 16-page pamphlet entitled "A Sermon on the Capture of Lord Cornwallis" is notable for the attribution of its authorship to "An ''African American''". Published in 1782, the book's use of this phrase predates any other yet identified by more than 50 years.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.harvard.edu/houghton/2015/04/23/exploring-the-origins-of-african-american/|title=Exploring the origins of 'African American' Houghton Library Blog|website=blogs.harvard.edu|access-date=May 6, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180507153324/https://blogs.harvard.edu/houghton/2015/04/23/exploring-the-origins-of-african-american/|archive-date=May 7, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In the 1980s, the term ''African American'' was advanced on the model of, for example, [[German Americans|German American]] or [[Irish Americans|Irish American]], to give descendants of [[Slavery in the United States|American slaves]], and other American Blacks who lived through the slavery era, a [[Cultural heritage|heritage]] and a cultural base.<ref name="books.google.com"/> The term was popularized in Black communities around the country via [[word of mouth]] and ultimately received mainstream use after [[Jesse Jackson]] publicly used the term in front of a national audience in 1988. Subsequently, major media outlets adopted its use.<ref name="books.google.com"/>

Surveys in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century showed that the majority of Black Americans had no preference for ''African American'' versus ''Black American'',<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.gallup.com/poll/28816/black-african-american.aspx|title=Black or African American?|first=Frank|last=Newport|publisher=Gallup|date=September 28, 2007|access-date=September 26, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100906124630/https://www.gallup.com/poll/28816/Black-African-American.aspx|archive-date=September 6, 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> although they had a slight preference for the latter in personal settings and the former in more formal settings.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Miller|first1=Pepper|last2=Kemp|first2=Herb|title=What's Black About? Insights to Increase Your Share of a Changing African-American Market|page=8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1OzZr_U2x_wC&pg=PA8|publisher=Paramount Market Publishing, Inc|year=2006|isbn=978-0-9725290-9-9|oclc=61694280}}</ref> By 2021, according to polling from [[Gallup, Inc.|Gallup]], 58% of Black Americans expressed no preference for what their group should be called, with 17% each preferring ''Black'' and ''African-American''. Among those with no preference, Gallup found a slight majority favored ''Black'' "if [they] had to choose."<ref>{{Cite web |last=McCarthy |first=Justin and Whitney Dupree |date=2021-08-04 |title=No Preferred Racial Term Among Most Black, Hispanic Adults |url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/353000/no-preferred-racial-term-among-black-hispanic-adults.aspx |access-date=2024-03-31 |website=Gallup.com |language=en}}</ref>

In 2020, the [[Associated Press]] updated its [[AP Stylebook]] to direct its writers to capitalize the first letter of ''Black'' when it is used "in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-07-20 |title=Explaining AP style on Black and white |url=https://apnews.com/article/archive-race-and-ethnicity-9105661462 |access-date=2024-03-31 |website=AP News |language=en}}</ref> ''[[The New York Times]]'' and other outlets made similar changes at the same time, to put "Black" on the same footing as other racial and ethnic terms, such as Latino, Asian, and African-American.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Coleman |first=Nancy |date=2020-07-05 |title=Why We're Capitalizing Black |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black.html |access-date=2024-03-31 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>

In 2023, the government released a new more detailed breakdown due to the rise in racially Black immigration into the US, listing African American as a compound termed ethnicity, distinguished from other racially Black ethnicities such as Nigerian, Jamaican etc.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Improvements to the 2020 Census Race and Hispanic Origin Question Designs, Data Processing, and Coding Procedures |url=https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/08/improvements-to-2020-census-race-hispanic-origin-question-designs.html |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=Census.gov}}</ref>

The term ''African American'' embraces [[pan-Africanism]] as earlier enunciated by prominent African thinkers such as [[Marcus Garvey]], [[W. E. B. Du Bois]], and [[George Padmore]]. The term ''Afro-[[Usonia]]n'', and variations of such, are more rarely used.<ref>Brennan, Timothy. 2008. ''Secular Devotion: Afro-Latin Music and Imperial Jazz'', p. 249.</ref><ref>[https://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/12/what_call_americans "Yankees, gringos and USAnians"], ''[[The Economist]]'', December 9, 2010. Retrieved March 26, 2014.</ref>