Editing African Americans (section)

===Terms no longer in common use===
Before the independence of the [[Thirteen Colonies]] until the abolition of slavery in 1865, an African American slave was commonly known as a ''[[negro]]''. ''[[Free negro]]'' was the legal status in the territory of an African American person who was not enslaved.<ref>{{cite book|last=Frazier|first=Edward Franklin|title=The Free Negro Family|year=1968|page=1}}</ref> In response to the project of the [[American Colonization Society]] to transport free Blacks to the future Liberia, a project most Blacks strongly rejected, the Blacks at the time said they were no more African than White Americans were European, and referred to themselves with what they considered a more acceptable term, "[[colored]] Americans". The term was used until the second quarter of the 20th century, when it was considered outmoded and generally gave way again to the exclusive use of ''negro''. By the 1940s, the term was commonly capitalized (''Negro''); but by the mid-1960s, it was considered disparaging. By the end of the 20th century, ''negro'' had come to be considered inappropriate and was rarely used and perceived as a [[pejorative]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Tottie|first=Gunnel|title=An Introduction to American English|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWDUtK-f1tQC&pg=PA200|year=2002|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-631-19792-8|page=200}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Anderson|first1=Talmadge|first2=James|last2=Stewart|title=Introduction to African American Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=49tXR1Ok6poC&pg=PA3|year=2007|publisher=Black Classics Press|location=Baltimore|isbn=978-1-58073-039-6|page=3}}</ref> The term is rarely used by younger Black people, but remained in use by many older African Americans who had grown up with the term, particularly in the Southern US.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/they-put-negro-on-there/38094/|title=They Put 'Negro' on There?|first=Chris|last=Good|date=March 26, 2010|website=[[The Atlantic]]|access-date=October 7, 2010}}</ref> The term remains in use in some contexts, such as the [[United Negro College Fund]], an American philanthropic organization.

There are many other deliberately insulting terms, many of which were in common use (e.g., ''[[nigger]]''), but had become unacceptable in normal discourse before the end of the 20th century. One exception is the use, among the Black community, of the slur ''nigger'' rendered as ''[[nigga]]'', representing the pronunciation of the word in [[African-American English|African American English]]. This usage has been popularized by American [[rap]] and [[Hip hop music|hip-hop]] [[Music of the United States|music cultures]] and is used as part of an [[In-group and out-group|in-group]] [[lexicon]] and speech. It is not necessarily [[Pejorative|derogatory]] and, when used among Black people, the word is often used to mean "[[wikt:homie|homie]]" or "friend".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rahman|first=Jacquelyn|date=June 2012|title=The N Word: Its History and Use in the African American Community|journal=Journal of English Linguistics|volume=40|issue=2|pages=137–171|doi=10.1177/0075424211414807|s2cid=144164210|issn=0075-4242}}</ref> Acceptance of intra-group usage of the word ''nigga'' is still debated, although it has established a foothold among younger generations. The [[NAACP]] denounces the use of both ''nigga'' and ''nigger''.<ref name="BaltSun">{{Cite news|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2007-07-10-0707100124-story.html|title=NAACP aims to bury the 'N-word'|last=Brewington|first=Kelly|date=July 10, 2007|work=The Baltimore Sun|access-date=June 15, 2019|archive-date=October 24, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191024221608/https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2007-07-10-0707100124-story.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>