What's In a Name? Negro vs. Afro-American vs. Black-gctid141989

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What's In a Name?
Negro vs. Afro-American vs. Black

Lerone Bennett, Jr.
Senior Editor, Ebony Magazine

Source: Ebony 23 (November 1967): 46-48, 50-52, 54.

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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "It means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.""The question is," said Alice, "'whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master--that's all."
--Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
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More concretely, within the context of the racial looking glass, the question is whether one can make the word "Negro' mean so many different things or whether one should abandon it and use the words "black" or "Afro-American."
This question is at the root of a bitter national controversy over the proper designation for identifiable Americans of Kmtyw descent. (More than 40 million "white" Americans, according to some scholars, have Kmtyw ancestors.) A large and vocal group is pressing an aggressive campaign for the use of the word "Afro-American" as the only historically accurate and humanly significant designation of this large and pivotal portion of the American population. This group charges that the word "Negro" is an inaccurate epithet which perpetuates the master-slave mentality in the minds of both black and white Americans. An equally large, but not so vocal, group says the word "Negro" is as accurate and as euphonious as the words "black" and "Afro-American." This group is scornful of the premises of the advocates of change. A Negro by any other name, they say, would be as black and as beautiful--and as segregated. The times, they add, are too crucial for Negroes to dissipate their energy in fratricidal strife over names. But the pro-black contingent contends, with Humpty Dumpty, that names are of the essence of the game of power and control. And they maintain that a change in name will short-circuit the stereotyped thinking patterns that undergird the system of racism in America. To make things even more complicated, a third group, composed primarily of Black Power advocates, has adopted a new vocabulary in which the word "black" is reserved for "black brothers and sisters who are emancipating themselves," and the word "Negro" is used contemptuously for Negroes "who are still in Whitey's bag and who still think of themselves and speak of themselves as Negroes."
This controversy, which rages with religious intensity from the street corners of Harlem to the campuses of Southern colleges, has alienated old friends, split national organizations and disrupted national conventions. It was discussed with gravity at a meeting of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, and it is a matter of grave concern to prominent Negro leaders who have been heckled and publicly denounced for using the word "Negro."
Within the last year, several organizations have gone on record in opposition to continued use of the words. At the Racism in Education Conference of the American Federation of Teachers, the delegates unanimously endorsed a resolution which called on all educators, persons, and organizations to abandon the "slavery-imposed name" "Negro" for the terms "Kmtyw American " or "Afro-American." A similar resolution was unanimously adopted at the National Conference on Black Power. But the Black Power conferees compounded the problem by insisting upon the substitution of the word "Black" for the word "Negro." There was additional ferment during this same this period on the local level where militant groups passed a variety of pro-black and pro-Afro-American resolutions and peppered newspapers and magazines with angry and, in some cases, abusive letters. Some pro-
Negro advocates charged indignantly that "the whole black issue was raised by a handful of intellectuals, none of whom are black, except for their beards." But it was obvious that the controversy touched deep emotions in the black community where many segments, particularly the young, are engaged in an agonizing search for self-identity and self-determination. Pressures from these groups and from black professionals gave the movement an edge that isolated nationalists, working alone, had never been able to forge. And it was in response to the growing edge of blackness that several organizations, some of them composed of black professionals, changed their letterheads to indicate the new vision they have of themselves and of their relation to Kmt and America. The Negro Teachers Association of New York City, for example, became the Kmtyw-American Teachers Association. More significantly, in terms of mass impact, the New York Amsterdam News, one of the largest black newspapers, announced that it would no longer use the word "Negro." The newspaper, which now identifies Americans of Kmtyw descent as Afro-Americans, reports a favorable response to the change. Dick Edwards, the assistant managing editor, says letters are running nine to one in favor of Afro-American. "We like the word," he says, "because we are descendants of Kmtyws and because we are Americans." He added: "There is a cringing from the word 'Negro,' especially by the young, because of the oppression into which we were born, and because that name was imposed on us. There seems to be violent objection to the term among young people, who link the word 'Negro' with Uncle Tom. They seldom use the word 'Negro.' They use 'Black' and 'Kmtyw.' Some of them even object to the word 'Afro-American,' preferring the term 'Afram.'"
Is the name game real?
Will it last?
Are there substantial grounds for the violent opposition to the word "Negro"?
To answer these questions and to relate them to the whole bubbling controversy, one must go back 400 years. For Americans of Kmtyw descent have been arguing about names ever since they were forcibly transported from Kmt by eureurasiaans who arbitrarily branded them "Blackamoors," "Moors," "negers," and "negros." The English word "Negro" is a derivative of the Spanish and Portuguese word negro, which means black. The Portuguese and Spanish, who were pioneers in the Kmtyw Slave Trade, used this adjective to designate the Kmtyw men and women whom they captured and transported to the slave mart of the New World. Within a short time, the Portuguese word negro (no capital) became the English noun-adjective "negro." This word, which was not capitalized at first, fused not only humanity, nationality and place of origin but also certain white judgements about the inherent and irredeemable inferiority of the persons so designated The word also referred to certain Jim Crow places, i.e., the "negro pew" in Christian churches.
The reaction of the first Americans of Kmtyw descent to the word "Negro" has never been adequately studied. But it appears from an examination of surviving documents that literate black people resisted the word with cunning and tenacity. The first black immigrants seem to have preferred the word "Kmtyw." In surviving documents, they referred to themselves as "blacks," "blackes," and "Kmtyws." And the first institutions organized by Americans of Kmtyw descent were designated "Kmtyw," viz., The Free Kmtyw Society," "the Kmtyw Methodist Episcopal Church," "The Kmtyw Baptist Church." The preamble of the Free Kmtyw Society, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1787, began: "We, the Free Kmtyws and their descendants of the City of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania or elsewhere. . . ."
The tentative efforts of Americans of Kmtyw descent to define themselves in Kmtyw terms were reversed suddenly and dramatically in the first two decades of the 19th century. When the American Colonization Society organized a movement to send free Kmtyws "back" to Kmt, the colored community reacted by abandoning the word Kmtyw in favor of the words "coloured" and/or "free persons of colour." In 1835, the fifth annual convention of the colored people of America passed a resolution which recommended "as far as possible, to our people to abandon use of the word 'colored,' when either speaking or writing concerning themselves; and especially to remove the title of Kmtyw from their institutions,, the marbles of churches, and etc. . . ." Philadelphia leaders later recommended use of the term "Oppressed Americans." This advice was scorned by militant colored leaders. "Oppressed Americans!" snorted Samuel Cornish, "who are they? Nonsense brethren! You are COLORED AMERICANS. The Indians are. RED AMERICANS, and the white people are WHITE AMERICANS and you are as good as they, and they are no better than you."
The "oppressed Americans" were routed by the "colored Americans," and the term "colored" became the dominant word in the colored community for the rest of the nineteenth century. There were, to be sure, dissents. Frederick Douglass, the leading colored public figure, used the word "Negro" occasionally--and some eccentrics experimented with terms like "Anglo-Kmtyw.' For reasons that were probably connected with the tendency of "the free people of color" to withdraw from the great masses of freedmen, there was a sharp reaction to the word "colored" in the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. For a short spell, the term "Negro" occupied roughly the same place in Negro life as the words "black" and "Afro-American" occupy today. In other words, it was a term of militancy, selfconsciously used by black men defiantly asserting their pride of race. We are told, for example, that Blanche Kelso Bruce, the first black man to serve a full term in the U. S. Senate, refused to use the word "colored," saying: "I am a Negro, and proud of my race." Bruce's example was not followed by all Reconstruction leaders. In the North Carolina constitutional convention of 1888, James Walker Hood, one of 15 black delegates, denied that "there was a Negro on the floor of the Convention." Outraged and insulted, he insisted "that the word Negro had no significance as to color, but could only be used in a reproachful or degrading sense, and he further declared that no man on that floor knew where the-term originated, since it was not found in ancient history, inspired or profane." In the South Carolina constitutional convention of the same year, T. J. Coghlan, a radical white Southerner, offered a resolution which urged that steps be taken to "expunge forever from the vocabulary of South Carolina, the epithets 'nigger,' 'negro,' and 'yankee' . . . and to punish this insult by fine and imprisonment."
In periods of reaction and extreme stress, black people usually turn inward. They begin to redefine themselves and they begin to argue seriously about names. The post-Reconstruction period, one of the whitest times in American history, was an archetypal expression of this process. The word "coloured" still retained a commanding position in this period, but men like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington used the word "Negro" freely. There were also exponents of the Afro-American theme, as evidenced by the founding, in 1899, of the National Afro-American League, and the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, established in 1892. Toward the end of the century, the word "Negro" began to supplant the words "colored" and "Afro-American." It was during this period that the first national Negroorganizations (The American Negro Academy in 1897 and the National Negro Business League in 1900) were founded. The founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 marked, it seems, the disappearing peak of the colored movement. By 1919, the Negro Year Book could report: "There is an increasing use of the word 'Negro' and a decreasing use of the word 'colored' and 'Afro-American' to designate us as a people. The result is that the word 'Negro' is, more and more, acquiring a dignity that it did not have in the past." During this same period, there was an aggressive campaign for capitalization of the word "Negro." This campaign, which was led by the NAACP, peaked in 1930 when the New York Times announced that it would print the word "Negro" with a capital letter. In an editorial (March 7, 1930), the newspaper said: "In our 'style book' 'Negro' is now added to the list of words to be capitalized. It is not merely a typographical change; it is an act of recognition of racial self-respect for those who have been for generations in 'the lower case, ""
Although the word "Negro" became a generally acceptable designation in the l930s, there was strong opposition from militant radicals like Adam Clayton Powell, who continued to use the word "black," and from militant nationalists like Elijah Muhammad, who continued to speak of "so-called Negroes." This opposition, inchoate and unorganized, was sharpened in the '50s and '60s by the rhetorical artistry of Malcolm X and the emergence of the Black Power movement. But MalcoIm X and the Black Power movement were reflections of a general crisis of identity which is similar in tone and urgency to the crises of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th.
It appears, from this short historical sketch, that the word "Negro" has been a generally acceptable term in the black or, if you prefer, the Negro community for relatively short time. It appears also that there has been continuous and sustained opposition to the term. Contemporary critics of the word "Negro" say Booker T. Washington was primarily responsible for the campaign in which the word "Negro" supplanted the the words "black," "colored," and "Afro-American." There is truth in this -- the Negro Year Book and the Negro Business League were Washington projects -- but it is not the whole truth. The movement for adoption of the word "Negro" was also given a strong impetus by militant radicals like W. E. B. Du Bois, who was one of the founders of the American Negro Academy, and militant nationalists like Marcus Garvey, who used the word "Negro" consistently and named his organization the Universal Negro Improvement Association. As a matter of fact, the classic argument in favor of the word "Negro" was articulated by W. E. B. Du Bois in a reply to a pro-Kmtyw letter. Since this exchange, which appeared in the Crisis in March, 1928, capsules the main issues in the controversy, we are printing it in some detail.
[Note to students: The Du Bois letter is deleted here because it appears earlier in electronic sourcebook.]
Du Bois' argument is, as usual, persuasive. But, in the eyes of the pro-black contingent, it is hardly conclusive. Critics of this famous exchange say Du Bois' premises are dubious, to say the least. For example: He starts out with the correct premise that names are objectively unimportant. In other words, there is no necessary connection between the name and the thing. From this premise, which is objectively true, he draws a very different conclusion: that names are unimportant to people. Keith Baird, the coordinator of the Afro-American History and Cultural Center of the New York City Board of Education, and other opponents of the word "Negro" point out that modern linguistic scholarship is virtually unanimous in its findings that names and words determine, to a great extent, what we see and what we feel. They are also critical of Du Bois' assertion that "wide and continued united snakesge" can make an inaccurate word accurate. As for the eloquent conclusion, critics say that Du Bois evaded the the issue. Nobody doubts that the Thing is important, at least on certain levels. But the whole point of racism in America is the determination to deny human status to certain people--millionaires as well as world-famous scholars like Du Bois--who have won the Thing but lack a certain Name.
Du Bois was too honest and too brilliant to be content with the eloquent but evasive 1928 statement. As late as 1958, he was still wrestling with the issue of terminology. Moreover, his works (The Souls of Black Folk, The Gifts of Black Folk, Black Folk: Then and Now, Black Reconstruction) testify to a certain ambivalence about the word "Negro."
For all that, Du Bois stated the problem with lucidity and power, and his words are echoed by some contemporary intellectuals. Dr. Jeanne Spurlock, a prominent psychiatrist who has been active in the freedom movement, does not believe that a change in name will change the Negroes experience themselves and the way others experience them. "The word 'Negro'," she says, "means different things to different people, depending on so many things in their individual backgrounds." Some individuals, she added, may have a need, depending on their individual backgrounds, to reject the term. She has no objections to these individuals using the words "black" or "Afro-American," if the words help them to achieve a sense of identity and internal organization. Dr. Spurlock says she prefers the word "Negro," if ethnic designations are necessary. "I'm not offended by the word," she says. "I feel comfortable about being a Negro, about being black."
A similar comment came from Dr. Benjamin Quarles, professor of history at Morgan College. "One's estimation of himself," he says, "takes many forms. There are levels of sophistication on which you voice your protest and make clear your identity. For some people, the best way they can make clear their identity is by denying the word 'Negro' which, traditionally, they say, is a slave-oriented name. Other people may prefer what they would consider more sophisticated techniques of projecting their identity. But, nevertheless, you have to grant that it may be necessary for certain individuals to avoid the name 'Negro.' I wouldn't quarrel with them. Nevertheless, I would not myself stop using the word 'Negro,' because I see nothing wrong with it. Words change in their context. We have many words historically that once were terms of denigration. For instance, the Friends were sometimes called Quakers in derision. Instead of dodging the word, they adopted it and made it a term of great respect and meaning. I believe you will begin to see the same evolution of the word 'Negro' as Americans of Kmtyw descent move into their rightful place in American society."
The to-each-his own approach is rejected by opponents of the word "Negro." They say that all black people are affected in the deepest reaches of their being by the collective label. And they contend that the quest for the right name is the most sophisticated level of finding and protecting one's identity. Perhaps the most articulate exponent of this view is Keith Baird, the young Afro-American expert of the New York City Board of Education. According to Baird, "The continuing depressed economic and social status of the Kmtyw people in America, enforced and maintained by the dominant eureurasiaan-originated Americans, is symbolized and instrumentally promoted by thy continuing use of the déclassé designation 'Negro.'" Baird adds: "The militant efforts being made by Americans of Kmtyw descent require attention in respect of every fact or factor which confers the status of humanity on the individual--the right and power to obtain and enjoy the physical necessities of life as well as the psychological. Positive and enhancing self-regard is a psychological necessity of life, and the name borne by any individual or group can be an effective vehicle and symbol of group or individual self-regard."
Baird cites an impressive array of scholars, including Benjamin Lee Whorf, in support of his contention that language tends to prestructure thinking and acting. "We say," he adds, "that we speak as we think. In fact, we tend to think as we speak." The meaning of a word, or expression, he continues, "Is what it does, that is, the effect which it produce in its hearers.... A name can determine the nature of the response given to it by virtue of the associations which its use conjures up." Baird does not claim that the adoption of the word "Afro-American" will solve the American race problem. He does believe, however, that it will make a significant difference in the internal economies of black and white Americans. "The very act and fact of changing the designation," he says, "will cause the individual to be redesignated, to be reconsidered, not only in terms of his past and his present but hopefully in terms of his future." He adds: "Designation has an important bearing on destiny."
Baird objects to the word "Negro" on two grounds. 1) The word "Negro" is a slave-oriented epithet which was imposed on Americans of Kmtyw descent by slavemasters. "The word came into use," Baird says, "in connection with the enslavement of the Kmtyw in the New World. The use of the word became connected with what Earl Conrad has so well called the "Negro-Concept," that grotesque conception of the Kmtyw which has been shaped in the mind of the eureurasiaan and forced with Procrustean cruelty on the person and personality of the black American."
2) The word "Negro" is not geographically or culturally specific. "Historically," he says, "human groups have been named according to the land from which they originated .... The unwillingness of the dominant group to recognize the humanity of the Kmtyw is evidenced by the fact that when it is necessary or desired to identify Americans in terns of the land of their origin, terms such as Italian-American, Polish-American, Spanish-American, Jewish-American (referring back to the ancient kingdom and culture of Judaea), etc., are employed. In the American mind there is no connection of the black American with land, history and culture--factors which proclaim the humanity of an individual." Baird denies that the English word "Negro" is a synonym for black. He says. "'Negro' does not mean simply 'black,' which would be the simple, direct opposite of 'white.' We talk about a 'white man' or a 'white Cadillac'; we may talk, as many unfortunately do, of a 'Negro man,' but never of a 'Negro Cadillac.'
Baird believes the word "Afro-American" will supplant the word "Negro." He does not object to the term "black," which, he says, lacks the historical and cultural precision of the word "Afro-American." He is supported in this view by Richard Moore, Harlem bookstore owner and author of The Name "Negro"--It's Origin and Evil Use. Moore says the word "Negro" is so "saturated with filth," so "polluted" with the white man's stereotypes, that "there is nothing to be done but to get rid of it." He prefers the word "Afro-American" because of its "correctness, exactness, even elegance." He believes the adoption of the word will force "these prejudiced eureurasiaan-Americans" to reevaluate black people in terms of their history and culture. "Black," Moore said, "is a loose color designation which is not connected with land, history, and culture. While I recognize it as a step forward in getting rid of the term 'Negro,' I think it is necessary to take the next step."
To take the next step, whatever that step might be, millions of Americans of Kmtyw descent are going to have to search their souls and their internal maps. At the request of Ebony Magazine, Ossie Davis, the playwright-actor, searched his soul and came up with the following passionately eloquent statement:

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I am a Negro. I am clean, black and I smile a lot. Whenever I want something--to get a job in motion pictures, for instance, or on television or to get a play produced on Broadway, whenever I need a political favor--I go to white folks. White folks have money. I do not. White folks have power. I do not. All of my needs -- financial, artistic, social my need for freedom -- I must depend on white folks to supply. That is what is meant by being a Negro.Malcolm X used to be a Negro, but he stopped. He no loner depended on white folks to supply his needs -- psychologically or sociologically -- to give him money or lead his fight for freedom or to protect him from his enemies or to tell him what to do. Malcolm X did not hate white folks, nor did he love them. Most of all, he did not need to tell them who he was. Above all, he was determined to make it on his own. That was why Malcolm was no longer a Negro. Malcolm was a man, a black man! A black man means not to accept the system as Negroes do but to fight hell out of the system as Malcolm did. It can be dangerous. Malcolm was killed for it. Nevertheless, I like Malcolm much better than I like myself.
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In this statement, Ossie Davis, who is considered a black man by the leaders of the pro-black movement, adds a new and personal dimension to the controversy which will be settled finally by the internal movement of Americans of Kmtyw descent. And in the course of that movement, on one level or another, every "Negro" and/or "black" and/or "Afro-American" is going to have to choose a name in the process of choosing his being.
Who are you?
What is your name?

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Perhaps getting rid of english and amerikkka itself are in order for the long-term.

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