Negro (1555) is an outdated word meaning someone who seems to be at least part black African. From about 1712 to 1972 it was the main word in printed English for black people. Now it is kind of a put-down, except in certain phrases that come from that time, like the “Negro League” and the “United Negro College Fund”.
“Negro” is what the Spanish and Portuguese called black people. That is no surprise because in their language it simply means “black”. The English had picked up the word from them by 1555. The word “nigger” comes from it. So does “negress“. The word “night” is its distant cousin. So is the “nigra” in “denigration”.
In the 1600s, the words “Negroes” and “blacks” were about equally common in printed English. Negro did not clearly take over till the 1700s. Still, even in the 1780s, say, Jefferson rarely used the word, preferring “blacks” and especially “slaves”. Frederick Douglass in the 1840s and Solomon Northup in the 1850s preferred “colored”.
From 1749 onwards it was mostly written with a lower case n: “negro”, not “Negro”. In the 1920s, the NAACP pushed to have it capitalized. By 1928 the capitalized form became the most common. Two years later the New York Times started capitalizing it too: “in recognition of racial self-respect for those who have been for generations in the lower case.”
In the 1900s, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr and the early James Baldwin all preferred “Negro”. Booker T. Washington pushed for the US government to use it. The US Census used “Negro” from 1900 to 2010.
But that is printed, polite, middle-class usage. During Jim Crow times (1870s to 1960s), the main American working-class terms for black people were “coloured” and (among whites) “nigger”. Among ordinary black people, “Negro” was never all that common, probably because it sounded too much like the N-word. Whites often pronounced it as “Niggro”.
The 1960s swept all of that away.
Even though the early civil rights leaders used “Negro”, the word had become too much the creature of the older black leadership who thought the road to success and freedom in America was to act and dress and talk like white people, to depend on white approval.
By 1963 Malcolm X preferred “Black” to “Negro”. Notice how he uses the two words:
The Negro “revolution” is controlled by these foxy white liberals, by the government itself. But the black revolution is controlled only by God.
By 1966 Stokely Carmichael began to use “black” in place of “Negro”. Being black meant being proud of who you are. Black Power. Black pride. “Black is beautiful.” Two years later James Brown underscored that point with his song “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud”.
By 1974 the word “blacks” became more common than “Negroes” in printed (mostly white middle-class) English. Among blacks in the US, “Negro” now meant an Uncle Tom, someone faithful to white people.
In 2008 it went like this in printed English:
- 51.9% Blacks or blacks
- 25.4% African Americans (caught on in the 1980s)
- 19.8% Negroes or negroes
- 2.5% niggers
- 0.3% coloreds
The last two were never all that common in print.
– Abagond, 2008, 2016. Pretty much rewritten in 2014.
See also:
- Google Ngram viewer for a chart on usage in printed English from 1600 to 2008
- coloured
- African American
- black
- the N-word
- “Black is beautiful”
Black America and the N-word:
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The n-word! That is a whole other post! But thanks for the link (even if it seems like an ad).
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My name is Dani Atkins and I am one of 4 surviving children of Ronald Edward Atkins and Clancyna Marie Atkins. On January 26, 2008 my father was killed in a tragic car accident that took place only 2 minutes away from my home. My parents had been married for 30 years at the time of the accident without separation. As I have been assisting my mother with putting together various lawsuits and claims against several different persons, insurance companies, and even the Los Angeles Police Department regarding several acts of negligence and dishonor surrounding my fathers death, I have come across a disturbing piece of information that I, being a 24 year old African American person am appauled. My father having been born on April 9, 1955, has a birth certificate that identifies his color and race as being “NEGRO.” My grandmother, Eloise Marie Harrison having been born on April 4, 1933 has a birth certificate that identifies her color and race as being “NEGRO”. My mother, who is still alive, Clancyna Marie Atkins born on September 4, 1956 has a birth certificate that identifies her color and race as being “NEGRO” as well. And I am quite sure there are thousands if not milliions of other African American people dead or alive who have been identified on paper at birth as being “NEGRO” I am absolutely disgusted that the United States of America even in 2009 have not made an attempt to make right this defamation of character in administering all new birth certificates to those who have died as well as those still living to identify these HUMAN PEOPLE with dignity and respect. I am passionately committed to make my fathers name wholly reflect the honorable father, husband, and man that he was and the fact that his life was not even given an opportunity to start before he was branded on United States of America paper as being a “NEGRO” is a disgrace and a shame on America.
PLEASE SUPPORT THIS MESSAGE TO THE WHITE HOUSE BY SIGNING MY ONLINE PETITION at: http://www.gopetition.com/online/29117.html
If you have any questions e- mail me at: kingdom.servant.dani@gmail.com
Thank You,
Dani
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The term ‘negro’ is ugly. Since some whites insist on using ‘negro’ does this mean we can refer to whites as blanco?
No. Negro is ugly and people who use it, especially with a certain accent, often use it with gbdistaste in their mouth.
I am not African-American, because I hate that term too.
I am in Canada, where the pc (white mainstream) crowd are trying to push the term African-Canadian, despite the majority of blacks saying repeatedly (on censuses) they don’t care for it.
I am just black.
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To Mel
In anthropological terms we are classified: Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Australoid; Black, White, Asian, and Aborigine. Sadly the term Negro has been used to discriminate, but it is not any different then calling someone Caucasian. It is a shame that we can not stick to these terminologies without sounding discriminatory. I think no matter what people of African decent want to be called, racist people will find a way to use that word in a hateful way.
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Mel,
The term ‘negro’ is ugly. Since some whites insist on using ‘negro’ does this mean we can refer to whites as blanco?
I’m all for this! Negro, Blanco, Amarillo, o Otros. It should be on the Census:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/01/06/2010-01-06_census_negro_issue_use_of_word_on_forms_raises_hackles_memories_of_jim_crow.html
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The only time I use the term “Negro” is when I’m trying to be funny. I use it in a disparaging manner: “Negro please!” To me a Negro is like a generic Black if that makes sense. I also use it instead of that other special n-word; I HATE that n-word with a purple passion and can’t for the life of me understand why Blacks continue to use it. It’s weird because some Blacks can’t stand to be called African-American, but blithely call themselves and others that n-word.
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Not quite sure, just seeing the one word title reminded me of this classic, with the same title by Nancy Cunard
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MIf25BbAQxUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Negro+cunard&source=bl&ots=bjXQ_OFF2k&sig=ThYgMP8amp4HgfqRrcDJjRGIDq8&hl=en&ei=tZdHTMbLM4P00gSwjMjEBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Negro is Spanish for Black. The important point is that out of respect we should capitalize when referring to specific groups of people. Negro, Black, Colored, African American, Hispanic, Jew, Asian etc. I contacted the L.A. Times after reading a sentence with the phrase “blacks and Korean American.
One more thing, lose the n-word, that’s a slave word.
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How do you know the New York Times made it policy to capitalize the N in Negro in the 1930’s where did you find that source?
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