Finding a Proper Name to Call Black Americans

Author(s): Randall Kennedy

Source: The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education , Winter, 2004-2005, No. 46 (Winter,
2004-2005), pp. 72-83
Published by: The JBHE Foundation, Inc

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 Finding a Proper Name to Call Black Americans
Randall Kennedy

Editor's Note: A distinguished legal scholar examines the history of the names used by people to identify black Americans.
As in his past writings, the author touches the third rail and does not draw back.
We encourage readers of this journal to send us their thoughts about the term they prefer and why.
Please e-mail your views to info@jbhe.com.

1848 when over 90 percent of African Americans toiled as

FEW Americans'
THINGS struggle ARE more
with collective revealing of black
self-identity slaves. "The question should be, my friends, shall we arise
than ongoing debates over the name by which they and act like men, and cast off this terrible yoke."
wish to be known. Today among "blacks," "African On the other hand, there are many who attach considerable
American" is the most popular label of collective self-iden- importance to fashioning what they deem to be an appropri-
tification. But that preference is by no means uniform. ate label. "Until we get this racial designation properly fixed
Linguist John McWhorter of the Manhattan Institute main- in the language and literature of the country," T. Thomas
tains that it is time "we descendants of slaves He called his Fortune declared in 1906, "we shall be kicked and
publication North Starcuffed and sneered at." The issue has engaged the
brought to the United States let go of the term
a "colored newspaper"
'African American' and go back to calling our- attention of an impressive roster of commentators
selves Black - with a capital B." Sociologist Orlando and activists, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Kelly Miller,
Patterson of Harvard University prefers "Afro-Ameri- James Weldon Johnson, George S. Schuyler, and
can" to "African American." Albert Murray, the dis- Malcolm X. Debate over the naming of black folk
tinguished man of letters, often uses "Negro," dis- has been the occasion for important ideological dis-
likes being called a "black American," and "absolute- putes and the source of a nomenclature that includes
ly despise[s]" being called "African American." By such terms as "Africans," (with a "c"), "Afrikans"
contrast, the social critic Stanley Crouch is tolerantly (with a "k"), "Anglo Africans," "Aframerican," "Afro-
Frederick
eclectic. "Any [term]'ll do for me," he says. "Negro, DouglassAmericans" (hyphenated), "Afroamericans" (no
Afro-Americans, African-Americans - I don't care." hyphenation), "Africans in America," "Ethiopians," "Amer-
Some observers condemn debate over racial nomenclature ican Negroes," "Negro Saxon," "Negro Americans," "black
as a wasteful diversion. The Reverend Joseph Lowery, for- (with a small 'b')," "Black" (with a capital 'B'), "colored,"
mer head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and "people of color."
derided the debate, saying that he preferred "to direct [his] Debate has sparked political agitation. In 1868, in one of
interests and energies toward resisting the assault on our the first assemblies to which blacks were elected to public
efforts to achieve economic justice." In agreement, though office, the South Carolina Convention declared that steps
from a very different ideological vantage, is the conservative should be taken to "expunge forever" the term "negro." In
economist Walter E. Williams, who maintains that what 2002 the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution urging
blacks elect to call themselves "is a non-issue." Debate over "people of all colors to refrain from using the word [nigger]
it, he warns, "can only serve to divert attention from larger in anger or camaraderie, and to condemn the use of [that]
issues without contributing to their solution." In dismissing word in any form or fashion in popular music, film and lit-
the pertinence of the nomenclature debate, Lowery and erature as an accepted variant of artistic expression."
Williams echo the firebrand abolitionist Henry Highland Some commentators, especially whites, who address race
Garnet. "How unprofitable it is for us to spend our golden matters, strive anxiously to be correct, non-insulting, and au
moments in long and solemn debate upon the question courant in their labeling. For instance, on the occasion of a
whether we shall be called 'African,' 'Colored American,' or new edition of Simple Justice, his grand account of Brown v.
'Africo Americans,' or 'Blacks,"' Garnet complained in Board of Education, Richard Kluger wrote in 2003 an
Randall Kennedy is a professor at Harvard Law School. "Author's Note" in which he somewhat nervously explained

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 FINDING A PROPER NAME TO CALL BLACK AMERICANS

He founded Negro why he deployed the term "Negro"

Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America
History Week.
(1987) that the early preference for "African" evinced an
throughout most of the book - the
part first published in 1974 - but
effort to retain an inheritance that had been stripped away by
deployed the terms "African Ameri-
kidnapping, enslavement, and forced migration to an alien
land in which even the fortunate few who attained freedom
can" and "black" in a new, conclud-
ing, retrospective chapter. As he
faced racial subordination in a society openly committed to
perceived it, "African American"
white supremacy. By contrast, Professor Patrick Rael con-
tends in Black Identity & Black Protest in the Antebellum
had become "the preferred form of
North (2002) that blacks "invoked Africa not as a reflection
racial identity of many blacks, connot-
Historian ing a heightened sense of dignity
of their cultural proclivities but as a claim to participate
Carter G. Woodson
and reminding the rest of the nation
equally in the civic life of the nation. They identified the race
of their separate ethnic origin and painful history." In with Africa not because they had retained the cultural quali-
defer-
ence to that preference, Kluger noted that his concluding
ties of the people of that continent but because they sought
the still
chapter would use "only the up-to-date term and 'black,' public acknowledgment and recognition accorded to
the standard alternative." those who could claim a legitimate national affiliation." Rael
One difficulty, however, that has already been noted is thatcontends that for blacks in the early national era, "African"
consensus on this issue is non-existent. The latest edition of functioned as "an ethnic identifier, akin to those later
the Associated Press Stylebook prefers "black" to "African- employed by European immigrant groups."
American" and directs writers to use African-American Although explanations differ regarding the early prefer-
"only in quotations or the names of organizations or if indi-
ence for "African," there is general agreement that the pop-
viduals describe themselves so." The AP Stylebook main- ularity of that term declined after the founding of the
American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1816. The ACS
tains that "Negro" should only be used "in names of organi-
zations or in quotations" and insists that "colored" is "con-
was established by whites who sought to move free blacks
sidered derogatory and should not be used." By contrast The
in the United States to Africa. Although a few free blacks ini-
New York Times Manual of Style and Usage treats "African-
tially supported the ACS program, most resolved quickly to
American" and "black" as synonyms, but then suggests that
reject it. In order to make clear their self-identification as
Americans and their repudiation of ACS-sponsored emigra-
writers "try to determine and use the term preferred by the
group or person being described. According to the manual,tion, some blacks began to refrain from referring to them-
"[w]hen no preference is known, the writer should choose."
selves as "Africans." In 1806 a black congregation named
itself the African Baptist Church of Boston. In the 1830s,
In this essay, I describe the ongoing history of disputes over
with its officers declaring that "the name African is ill
the naming of black folk, show how debates in this area of
racial nomenclature have mirrored and molded fluctuating
applied to a church composed of American citizens," the
racial sentiments, and explain my own labeling practice. congregation renamed itself the "First Independent Church
e African: When the United States was founded, "African"
of the People of Color."
He prefers "Afro-
was probably the term preferred by those relatively few * Colored: A decided shift toward American" to
"colored" is discernible in the lin-
blacks in a position to record their preferences. I am referring "African American."

here principally to free blacks who were literate. In 1790 the

guistic habits of outspoken blacks after
the second decade of the nineteenth
first United States Census enumerated 757,373 blacks, only
59,466 of whom - nearly 8 percent - were free. One maycentury. In 1827, in the first issue of
Freedom's Journal, the nation's
infer a preference for the term "African" among free blacks
first black newspaper, the editors
because of the titles they affixed to many of their most cher-
ished institutions: The Free African Society, the African Freeannounced that it would champion
School, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African
the interests of "free persons of color."
Society for Mutual Relief, and the Sons of Africa Society. Between 1830 and 1860, when Harvard Professor
blacks organized political conven-
Professor Sterling Stuckey maintains in Slave Culture: Orlando Patterson

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 THE JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

tions, they typically described such gatherings as conventions Americans! Who are they?" Answering his own question,
of "colored citizens." David Walker titled his fierce anti-slav- Cornish responded, "You are COLORED AMERICANS.
ery polemic David Walker 's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens The Indians are RED AMERICANS and the white people
of the World. Martin R. Delany wrote The Condition, are WHITE AMERICANS, and you are as good as they and
Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of they no better than you." Whipper's way, Cornish warned,
the United States. Frederick Douglass demanded to know would "rob us of our nationality."
"What Are the Colored People Doing for Themselves?" Cornish believed that certain names by which blacks were
The ardent abolitionist William Whipper objected to "col- identified had become prohibitively stigmatized by the
ored" because he rejected designations that racially He suggested that insults of white supremacists. "We are written
blacks be called
distinguished African Americans. This position was about, preached to, and prayed for as Negroes,
"oppressed Americans."
consistent with his repudiation of all "complexion- Africans, and blacks, all of which have been
al" institutions, including black uplift organizations. In stereotyped, as names of reproach, and on that
1835 at the Fifth Annual Convention for the account, if no other, are unacceptable." He claimed,
Improvement of the Free People of Colour in the however, that "colored" had somehow avoided that
United States, Whipper succeeded in winning pas- taint. That is why he embraced it as "the true term
sage of a resolution urging blacks to refrain not only, .. which is above reproach."
from using the term "African" with reference to them2 Others, however, despaired of finding a collective
selves, but also from using "the word 'colored."'
Abolitionist
name for blacks that would be spared the conse-

William Whipper quences of Negrophobia. Some therefore urged

Whipper later argued: "We have too long witnessed
the baneful effects of distinctions founded in hatred blacks to reclaim and use all of the various labels by
and prejudice, to advocate the insertion of either the word which they had identified themselves. At the National
'white' or 'colored."' Through racial labeling, Whipper Emigration Convention of Colored People in 1854, a resolu-
complained, whites had created an "odious distinction" tion posited that "Negro, African, Black, Colored and
between people of European ancestry and people of African Mulatto, when applied to us, shall ever be held with the same
ancestry. "If we practice the same," he warned, "these dis- respect and pride; and synonymous with the terms, Caucasian,
tinctions will never cease." Thus Whipper objected when White, Anglo-Saxon, and European, when applied to that
Frederick Douglass referred to his paper, the North Star, as class of people." This declaration failed, however, to quell
a "colored newspaper." In a letter to Douglass, Whipper continuing debate over the naming of black folk.
wrote that drawing racial lines at all, even for well-inten- Until the 1950s "colored" remained a prominent, re-
tioned purposes of self-description or self-mobilization, spectable, and widely used racial label. Its popularity among
would insure the "perpetuity" of such lines. Instead of racial black folk is reflected by the frequency with which "col-
designations such as "colored Americans," Whipper pro- ored" found its way into the titles of significant organiza-
posed using a political designation such as "oppressed tions including the Colored Co-Operative Publishing
Americans." Company, the Colored Farmers' Alliance, the Colored
Few blacks joined Whipper's campaign. Here and there, National Labor Union, the National Association of Colored
though, one does find manifestations of his approach. In 1856 Women, and, of course, the National Association for the
a convention of "colored" men in Ohio declared that the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
appellation "Americans" was the only label they desired. The By the late nineteenth century, however, a sufficient num-
ber of blacks embraced the term "Negro" for it to emerge as
presence of the term "colored" in practically all of the state
and national conventions of blacks in antebellum America,
an oft-used alternative. In his landmark Atlanta Exposition
Address
however, attests to the popularity in that era of attaching some of 1895, Booker T. Washington used "Negro"
sort of racial label to efforts aimed at Negro uplift. exclusively to refer to blacks. A group of black intellectuals
Responding to Whipper's suggestion that blacks refer toestablished the American Negro Academy in 1897. A group
of black entrepreneurs established the National Negro
themselves as "oppressed Americans," the pioneering jour-
nalist Samuel Cornish asked sarcastically, "OppressedBusiness League in 1900. And in 1915 Carter G. Woodson

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 FINDING A PROPER NAME TO CALL BLACK AMERICANS

little
and associates founded the Association for the Study ofdifference between the two words." No wonder the
Negro Life and History. influential black businessman James Forten inquired plain-
tively
By the 1930s use of "colored" by the black vanguard - in 1831: "Why do our friends as well as our enemies
call us negroes? We feel it a term of reproach, and could
professors, editors, writers, agitators - had strikingly waned
wish our friends would call us by some other name."
(though it remained for two decades a thoroughly respectable
Throughout the years following the Civil War, observers
term). One cannot pinpoint the precise time at which "Negro"
eclipses "colored." In contrast to other labels, "colored" with
does varying perspectives have repudiated "Negro." The
"I see nothing wrong outspoken black militant, Monroe Trotter, disap-
not appear to have received frontal, open, well-
articulated attacks. The evolution of its decline iswith 'Negro. '" proved of "Negro" for reasons that echoed the
thus frustratingly indistinct. Perhaps its demotion rejection of "African" in the colonial period; he
stems at least in part from the apprehension that "col- believed that "Negro" facilitated the stigmatization
ored" constitutes an attempted linguistic dilution of of blacks. Trotter insisted that blacks needed to

blackness, a rhetorical analogue to hair straighten- "overemphasize" their "status as American citizens
ers, nose thinners, and skin lighteners - signals of to the manor born because of the crusade to make
shame of or alienation from blackness. us aliens." Trotter preferred referring to blacks as
Whatever the origins of decline, the disfavored sta- "colored Americans," "colored people," or "Afro-
tus of "colored" now is clear. Currently any politi-
Benjamin Quarles Americans." An article published in A. Phillip
Randolph's
cian - even one speaking at an NAACP convention - Messenger magazine in the early 1930s com-
plained that "Negro" is a term of opprobrium having been
would be harshly criticized if he or she referred to "blacks"
"founded in slavery and forced degradation." Writing in
as "colored" people. Henry Louis Gates Jr. titled a memoir
1937
Colored People (1994) and "confess[ed]" that he prefers it as Professor Kelly Miller observed a similar sentiment,
remarking that "[m]any of the off-colored group object to
a racial label. That he felt called upon to present his prefer-
the term ... because it serves as a reminder of the humilia-
ence as a confession, however, signals the discredited status
tion and degradation through which the race has passed."
of colored in the lexicon of race. (Interestingly enough,
many who condemn "colored" somehow find it acceptable The most elaborate denunciation of Negro is found in
Richard
to describe blacks as "people of color." Although the basis of Moore's book The Name 'Negro': Its Origin and
Evil
that distinction is unclear, its presence is certain. "People ofUse (1960). Moore argues for rejecting Negro mainly
because of its provenance: it was the label unilaterally
color" is generally accepted, while "colored people" is not.)
* Negro: "Negro" has long been a controversial name imposed
for by the white man. According to Moore:
African Americans. It is derived from the Latin word for
It was in the development of [the] infamous, iniquitous, and
black - "niger" - and seeped into English via Portuguese. inhuman slave traffic that the term "negro" was foisted as a
Early in the nineteenth century some blacks deployed noun, as a designation, as a name, upon those who were
unfortunate enough to be caught in the clutches of the slave
"Negro" as an alternative to "African." Others, however, traders. This is the origin of the term "negro." Its origin is vile
eschewed the term since "Negro" and "slave" were fre- and infamous. It began in indignity. It began in immorality,
and the consciousness and the dignity of man must now rise
quently used synonymously. Living under the constant risk
and dispense with it forever.
of being reduced to slavery by mistaken or malicious
misidentification, free Negroes understandably desired to In 1960, however, many black intellectuals and activists
stay clear of any label that might facilitate confusion regard- were continuing to use what Moore condemned as "the
ing their legal status. slave master's vile appellation." How did he explain the per-
Another reason some blacks rejected "Negro" is because, sistence of "Negro" in the speech of many blacks, including
as Professor Rael notes, it "sounded perilously close to a such esteemed figures as Roy Wilkins, Thurgood Marshall,
related word which had become by the early nineteenth cen- Benjamin E. Mays, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther
tury a term of extreme disparagement." That related word, of King Jr.? Moore explained it in terms of socialization.
course, was "nigger." According to Rael, "'Negro' not only "[W]hat is wrong with some Afroamericans at the present
sounded like nigger. Worse, to many Americans there was time," he maintained, "is that they have become so condi-

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 THE JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

tioned to the smell of this name 'Negro' that they don't rec-inferior .... I hope that by the time I become a man, that
ognize the stench anymore. But I can assure you that the this word, 'Negro,' will be abolished."
ignominy, the indignity, and the stench of the name is very Du Bois, the indefatigable editor of The Crisis, answered
well recognized by those who insist on forcing it upon us." in an article that appeared in March 1928:
In the early 1960s Richard Moore and his "Committee to Do not ... make the all too common error of mistaking names
Present the Truth About the Name 'Negro"' was a small, for things. Names are only conventional signs for identifying
things. Things are the reality that counts. If a thing is despised
marginal tendency within the bourgeoning black liberation ... You will not alter matters by changing its name. If Men
movement. But Moore anticipated a viewpoint that soon despise Negroes, they will not despise them less if Negroes
are called "colored" or 'Afro-Americans.
dramatically grew in popularity, "There is growing resent-
ment of the word 'Negro,'"observed Stokely Carmichael Pressing the same point, Du Bois asserted that "[t]he feel-
(Kwame Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton in 1967 in theiring of inferiority is in you, not in any name. The name mere-
manifesto Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. The rea- ly evokes what is already there. Exorcise the hateful com-
son, they maintained, is that Negro "is the invention of theplex," Du Bois, declared, "and no name can ever make you
oppressor." hang your head."
The Nation of Islam (NOI) played a major role in popular- Having stressed the contingent, dependent character of
izing the repudiation of "Negro." A consistent racial
"If Men despise Negroes, labels, Du Bois proceeded to champion
theme in its eshcatology is that the white man - they will not despise them
"Negro" as against alternatives (though the logic
less if Negroes are
the white devil - has temporarily succeeded in called 'colored' or of his argument counsels toleration of all):
enslaving the black man by, among other things, 'Afro-Americans. '" Negro is a fine word. Etymologically and pho-
separating him from his true history and identity and netically it is much better and more logical than
seducing him into embracing falsities such as the "African" or "colored" or any of the various hyphen-
group name "Negro" (and surnames that imitate the ated circumlocutions. Of course, it is not "histori-
names of their former white slavemasters). cally" accurate. No name was historically accurate:
Malcolm X's remarks are representative of the spir- neither "English," "French," "German," "White,"
it in which the discrediting proceeded: "Jew," "Nordic," nor "Anglo-Saxon." They were all
at first nicknames, misnomers, accidents, grown even-
If you call yourself "white," why should I not call myself
"black"? Because you have taught me that I am a WE.B. Du Bois tually to conventional habits and achieving accura-
"Negro"! ... [I]f you ask a man his nationality and he cy because, and simply because, wide and contin-
says he is German, that means he comes from a nation called
Germany. If he says his nationality is French, that means he ued usage rendered them accurate. In this sense, "Negro" is
came from a nation called France. The term he uses to identi- quite as accurate, quite as old, and quite as definite as any
fy himself connects him with a nation, a language, a culture
name of any great group of people.
and a flag. Now if he says his nationality is "Negro" he has
told you nothing - except possibly that he is not good Not only did Du Bois use "Negro" without embarrassment
enough to be "American." ... If Frenchmen are of France and throughout his career, so, too, did Booker T. Washington,
Germans are of Germany, where is "Negroland"? I'll tell you:
it's in the mind of the white man! James Weldon Johnson, Marcus Garvey, A. Phillip Ran-
dolph, Walter White, and Charles Hamilton Houston. So,
Although "Negro" has been fervently criticized and is now too, did Ralph Ellison. So, too, did three of the twentieth
widely disapproved (though not as much as "colored"), it century's most distinguished Negro historians: Carter G.
has also been stoutly defended and retains a place in the Woodson, John Hope Franklin, and Benjamin Quarles. "I
vocabulary of an appreciable number of black Americans. see nothing wrong with [Negro]," Quarles averred in 1968.
The most notable defense was authored by W.E.B. Du Bois "Words change in their context. We have many words his-
U,

in remarks triggered by a letter written to him by a high torically that once were terms of denigration. For instance,
the Friends were sometimes called Quakers in derision.
C

school sophomore, Roland A. Barton. Why, Barton asked, o()

ci

would the NAACP magazine The Crisis "designate and seg- Instead of dodging the word, they adopted it and made it
0
4--

regate us as 'Negroes' and not as 'Americans.'.... The word their term of great respect and meaning .... [Y]ou will begin Cl

t-

.2
"-

'Negro,' or 'nigger,' is a white man's word to make us feel to see the same evolution of the word 'Negro' as Americans

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 FINDING A PROPER NAME TO CALL BLACK AMERICANS

asserting, to paraphrase The Amsterdam News, that Negro

of African descent move into their rightful place in American
society."
"Negro" has never (or at least not yet) recovered from the
discreditation that befell it in the 1960s. The semantic pref-
erences of the black masses proved to be less susceptible to
had become a proper noun and that to fail to capitalize it was
as erroneous and disrespectful as failing to capitalize such
names as Baker, Shoemaker, or Smith simply because those
names were derived from common nouns.

quick changes than the preferences of those who perceived
themselves as the vanguard of progressive African-
American politics. According to the Gallup Poll, in June
1968, 69 percent of Africair Americans favored "Negro"
compared to less than 6 percent who favored "black." By the
mid-1970s, however, a majority of African Americans
polled were expressing a preference for "black" over
"Negro."
The Capitalization of Negro
A separate conflict involving "Negro" concerned whether
it should be capitalized. Throughout the first third of the
Some people who spelled Negro with a lower case "n"
cannot be viewed as either passive racists who indifferently
accommodated themselves to white supremacist practices or
aggressive racists who self-consciously sought to keep
blacks in their place. William Lloyd Garrison used the small
"n" often in his visionary abolitionist journal The Liberator.
Bishop Atticus G. Haywood, whom Du Bois characterized
as "the fairest-minded of all white Southerners," used a
small "n" throughout his 1881 work Our Brother in Black.
Robert G. Ingersoll, whom Mary Church Terrell lauded as
"one of the best friends the Colored people of this country
ever had" also used the small "n."

twentieth century, many of the most prestigious forums in For the most part, though, noncapitalization constituted yet
journalism, the bar, and academia insisted that Negro should another sign of racist disrespect. As Irving Lewis Allen notes
be spelled without a capital N. In 1910 W.E.B. Du Bois in his illuminating article "Sly Slurs," in the typical case "to
specifically requested that the American Historical Review deny a capital letter to the name of an ethnic [or racial or reli-
permit him "as a matter of courtesy" to capitalize Negro in gious] group symbolically diminishes the social status of the
an article ("Reconstruction and Its Benefits") he had written. group. ... The user concedes the pronunciation and the
The Review's editor, J. Franklin Jameson, refused, asserting spelling, but in print the dignity of the name is taken away."
that "negro," as the Spanish word for black, had nothing to Responding editorially to an NAACP request that it change
do with nationality (unlike German or Hindu), was merely a its typographical tradition, the segregationist Messenger
characterization of a physical trait, and should thus be han- newspaper of Eatenton, Georgia, candidly declared in 1930
dled no differently than, say, "white man, brown "The term Negro servesthat it would refuse because capitalization would
man, or red man." This response rankled Du Bois. as a reminder of the lead to social equality. The Messenger voiced
humiliation and degra-
In his landmark monograph The Philadelphia openly what others intuited implicitly.
dation through which the
Negro (1899), Du Bois had insisted upon his pre- race has passed. " A concerted effort to standardize use of the capi-
ferred spelling, declaring that "eight million tal "N" dates from at least 1878 when Ferdinand

Americans are entitled to a capital letter." Now he Lee Barnett (husband of the pioneering journalist Ida
complained to Jameson that "mere uniformity in B. Wells) wrote "Spell It With a Capital," an edito-
office practice" was an insufficient basis "for rial that appeared in his Chicago newspaper, The
inflicting upon a contributor ... that which he Conservator. This demand resonated across the

regards as a personal insult." In the end, however, black American ideological spectrum. W.E.B. Du
as published in the Review, Du Bois' article con- Bois and Booker T. Washington clashed heatedly over
tained "negro" uncapitalized. various issues, but regarding the capital "N" they
Howard Professor
Other editors, mainly whites, also voiced agreed. Both attempted to convince all who would
Kelly Miller
Jameson's rationale. The small "n" was logical, the listen that the absence of a capitalized "N" signaled
editor of the Saturday Evening Post stated, because capital- an absence of proper respect for black folk.
ized words such as English, Irish, and African "come from Reformers encountered considerable resistance. In 1918,
proper names," while the word "negro" comes from the in response to a complaint about The New York Times, an
adjective black. Indignant African Americans retorted by editor defended the paper thusly:

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 THE JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The question has often been discussed. Generally the small of "Negro" and the ascendancy of "black" as labels for
letter is used in newspapers. From our point of view, the cap-
African Americans. Lerone Bennett Jr.'s book The Negro
italization of the word would tend to accentuate a separate-
ness of the colored portion of the population. That is just what Mood became The Black Mood. The Negro Digest became
we should avoid, is it not? Our view is that we should no more
Black World. Negro history became Black history. Indeed,
capitalize "negro" than "white." It would be calling special
attention to the hue of a man's skin, accentuating a difference "Negro" became something of an insult, an insinuation that
among Americans of different colors. one was insufficiently militant, insufficiently assertive,
insufficiently black. "[E]verybody knows what 'Negroes'
James Weldon Johnson responded in a column in the New
are," Leroi Jones [now Amiri Baraka], declared in 1966.
York Age newspaper in which he scoffed at the notion that
They are "straight-jacketed lazy clowns, whose only joy is
racial egalitarianism prompted the Times' policy of noncap-
carrying out the white man's will." "But there are some of
italization. "It brings a smile that hurts our face to think of
us," Jones asserted defiantly, "who will not be Negroes, who
the editorial staff of the Times delicately considering not to
know indeed we are something else, something stronger ...
do anything that would 'tend to accentuate a separateness of
there are some of us who know we are black people."
the colored population.' " After all, he might have added, this
One of the most important achievements of the various
was a period during which the Times accepted, indeed
black solidarity movements of the mid to late 1960s was the
approved of, the color bar in its own employment
He always preferred to transformation and elevation of "black" as a term
practices and in its coverage (and neglect) use
of the term "Negro. "
of description, a categorizing label, a term of iden-
blacks' racial oppression. During the first two decades
tity. Previously "black" had connoted inferiority to
of the twentieth century, The New York Times con-
many African Americans and was used by them to
sistently depicted blacks in ways that mirrored and
express contempt for complexions or fashions or
reinforced racist stereotypes of blacks as criminals
ways of acting deemed to be inferior. An illustra-
and incompetents. The Times' refusal to capitalize
tion of Negroes' contempt for blackness was the
"N " was by no means a sign of respect but instead
saying, well known among African Americans: "If
a small but revealing embrace of a typographical con-
you white, you all right, if you brown, stick around, if
vention that stigmatized the Negro.
Supreme Court Justice you black, git back." A stock feature of the ritual-
Then, on March 7, 1930, the Times reversedThurgood Marshall
ized word-play known as "the dozens" involved
itself. After mounting protests from a variety of
quips that began "Yo Momma so black .. ." - as in "Yo
quarters, it belatedly acknowledged what it had previously
Momma so black her nickname is evening." In Soul on Ice,
denied:
Eldridge Cleaver vividly recounted how he and fellow
It ... seems reasonable that a people who had once a proud Negro male convicts in the 1950s laughingly disparaged the
designation, such as Ethiopians, reaching back into the dawn prospect of loving or marrying Negro women, particularly
of history, having come up out of the slavery to which men of
English speech subjected them, should now have such recog- those with dark skin. As one inmate put it: "I don't want
nition as the lifting of the name from the lower case into the nothing black but a Cadillac."
upper case case can give them ..... Every use of the capital The Black Power Movement substantially changed that
"N" becomes a tribute to millions who have risen from a low
estate into the "brotherhood of the races." mindset. With considerable success it inverted the meaning
of "black" (just as some African Americans have recently
The Times credited Major Robert R. Moton, Booker T. sought to invert the meaning of "nigger"), transforming
Washington's successor as head of the Tuskegee Institute, "black" from a negative into a positive association. African
with convincing it to change. Noting that Moton had Americans began to challenge more forcefully than ever
informed them that blacks almost universally wished to see before the habitual association of whiteness with good traits
(6
4-
0

Negro capitalized, the editors of the Times wrote that its con- - innocence, virginity, cleanliness - and blackness with
0.

version to capitalizing "N" was "not merely a typographical bad ones - evil, sadness, filth. "Black is Beautiful" 0a

change" but also "an act in recognition of racial self-respect emerged as a slogan and James Brown's "Say it Loud, I'm 0:
0. L

for those who have been for generations in "the lower case." Black and I'm Proud" emerged as an anthem.
*6
Black: A key development of the 1960s was the demotion Not all blacks were happy with this development. Consider e-

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 FINDING A PROPER NAME TO CALL BLACK AMERICANS

"'Negro' is the invention the case of Rayford W. Logan. Few

trast, she declines to capitalize "white" because "historically
of the oppressor "
people have demonstrated as vivid-
it has been deployed as a signifier of social domination and
ly as Logan a passionate concern with
privilege, rather than as an indicator of social or national ori-
racial nomenclature. A distinguished
gin." Insofar as the labels "black" and "white" have both
activist and scholar who was a long-
been put to a variety of uses - some innocent, some malev-
time member of the facultyolent
of - one ought not be surprised when some readers
Howard University, Logan champi-
reject Biondi's rationale and suspect that asymmetrical cap-
oned the term "Negro" and abhorred
italization really signals a latter-day racial put-down of the
the term "black." According to his historically
biog- dominant Caucasians.
Stokely Carmichael rapher Kenneth Robert Janken,
* Nigger or Nigga: The term "nigger" and its various off-
(Kwame Ture)
Logan rejected the term "black"
shoots - most notably "nigga" - has significantly affected
because he saw it as the term of "racial chauvinists who the history of black self-naming. As we have seen, in the
denied that the American Negro also had European roots."
early nineteenth century, loathing of whites' deployment of
He saw it as the term of "'prophets of doom' who preachedthis word as a racial insult prompted many blacks to eschew
that Negroes could not succeed in America." He saw "black""Negro" for fear that it would be purposefully mispro-
as a term favored by demagogues eager to stratify Negroes
nounced and degraded. Although we do not know precisely
when "nigger" was first used self-consciously as a racial
along color lines that would privilege those who were dark-
er over those who were lighter. term of abuse, we do know that by the 1830s it was serving
that aim. The black minister and abolitionist Hosea Easton
Logan did not simply dislike "black;" he fought against its
observed in 1837 that "nigger" had become "an opprobrious
use. He resigned from his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, the old-
est African-American college fraternity, when it began to term, employed to impose contempt upon [blacks] as an
inferior race. .. ." In a Treatise on the Intellectual Character
describe itself as a "black" fraternity. He quit the advisory
committee of a project collecting the Frederick Douglass and the Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People
of the United States in what is perhaps the earliest sustained
Papers because the editor of the project described Douglass as
a "black." In 1973 he canceled the planned third edition of published
a discussion of the infamous N-word, Easton noted
textbook he co-authored rather than agree to have it updated
that often white adults reprimanded their children for being
by changing the title from The American Negro to The Black"worse than niggers," for being "ignorant as niggers," and
American. In 1977 when he bequeathed substantial gifts to
for having "no more credit than niggers." Easton also noted
that white adults frequently disciplined their children by
Williams College and Howard University he conditioned each
telling them that unless they behaved properly they would be
with a provision that nothing he left could be used to support
any program or person designated as "black" or any scholar
carried off by "the old nigger" or made to sit with "niggers"
who had referred to "Negroes" as "blacks." Of course, life or
is consigned to the "nigger seat" which was, of course, a
full of tragi-comic ironies. When Logan died in November
place of shame.
1982, The New York Times obituary headline read: "Dr.Abhorrence of "nigger" remains understandably wide-
Rayford Logan, Professor who Wrote Books on Blacks." spread given that, for centuries, it "I don't want nothing
Another ironic twist in the evolution of "black" has to do black but a Cadillac."
was deployed principally as a ver-
with whether it should be capitalized. Resounding notes bal weapon to terrorize, humiliate, and
struck during the conflict over capitalizing the "N" in Negro, degrade blacks. Yet in American cul-
some writers today capitalize the "B" in "Black" (or the "A" ture today nigger's status is rather
ui
in "African-American") but refrain from capitalizing the complex. On one hand, using nigger o

a-
0

Co
"W" in "white." Seeking to justify a difference in capitaliza- in one's speech is highly stigma-
0
o o=

tion practice, Professor Martha Biondi writes that, as a prop- tized in many contexts, giving rise to
3 er noun, Black "reflects the self-naming and self-identifica- penalties under legislation, common
a-
0

0
tion of a people whose national or ethnic origins have been law, and public opinion. On the other Black Panther

obscured by a history of capture and enslavement." By con- hand, "nigger" (or its derivatives) are Eldridge Cleaver 0l.

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 THE JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
often used openly by many young blacks, in their everyday
colloquial language. The key to understanding this paradoxi-
cal state of affairs is to realize that blacks are largely behind
the current popularization of "nigger," that the use of "nigger"'
(or "nigga") often involves an ironic "flipping" of the term's
historical meaning, and that another function of the term
involves designating a cultural terrain that only blacks are
permitted to enter and exploit. Those most responsible for
making nigger commonly hear4 beyond the rants of crude
white racists are black entertainers, particularly comedians
and rappers - people such as Richard Pryor (who won a
Grammy Award for his comedy album '"That Nigger's
Crazy"), the pioneering gangsta rap group NWA (Niggaz Wit
Attitude), Ice-T (who declared "I'm a nigger not a colored
man or black or a Negro or an Afro-American"), Ice Cube
(who called himself "the Nigga ya love to hate"), Tupak
Shakur (who suggested that "nigga" stands for "Never
Ignorant, Gets Goals Accomplished"), and Chris Rock (who
famously proclaimed that while he loves black people, he
hates niggers).
There are some observers who dispute the idea that black
cultural figures are truly responsible for the new populariza-
tion of "nigger," "nigga," and kindred terms. These observers
contend that strategically placed whites are responsible
because they own or manage the media that disseminate the
music and videos that glamorize the N-word. In the view of
these observers, the black entertainers are merely doing the
bidding of white entrepreneurs who pander to youngsters of
all hues, but especially whites, who have developed a taste for
what they perceive as "authentic" African-American cultural
products. This perspective wrongly forecloses the possibility
that blacks could ever independently choose to deploy "nig-
ger" as something other than an insulting, anti-black epithet.
The demonstrated boldness and autonomy of at least some
He won a Grammy blacks suggests, however, that, for
Award for his album good or for ill, their use of the N-
That Nigger's Crazy
word is truly theirs and not an echo,
imitation, or assignment of an all-pow-
erful white establishment.
Why is it that substantial numbers
o
of blacks refer to other blacks as
0
"nigger" despite the fact that racists the Last Poets, recalls that the group's language constituted
m
3
sw have brutally hurled that term at a "call to arms."
African Americans over the centuries?
0 o
0,
Richard Pryor The explanations are many and
80 WINTER
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mixed. In at least some instances, blacks"I love black
people, but I
use nigger in much the same way as racist
hate niggers."
whites: as a racial slur intended to hurt a
given target. Throughout American history
some Negroes have internalized anti-black
prejudice and given voice to it. Hence there
were some blacks who supported slavery,
the Confederacy, the segregation regime.
Racial self-deprecation, however, does not
persuasively explain the deployment of
"nigger" by all of the blacks who use it.
Many blacks have used nigger ironically
as a form of protest. Some use it as a mir-
ror to compel Americans, particularly Chris Rock
white Americans, to face anti-black
racism. This is, in large part, what prompted Dick Gregory
to entitle his first book Nigger: An Autobiography. An inten-
tion to protest is also what mainly accounts for the presence
of nigger in many of the classics of African-American dis-
sent, from the novels of Richard Wright to the polemics of
Martin Luther King Jr.
"Nigger" appears not only in literature aimed at highlight-
ing white racism. It also appears prominently in literature
devoted to condemning perceived deficiencies in black sol-
idarity. Consider, for example, the Last Poets, a black nation-
alist group formed in 1968 that merged poetry, music, and
politics in ways that anticipated rap. One item in the Last
Poets' repertoire was "Niggers are Scared of Revolution" in
which they charged:
Niggers are scared of revolution but niggers shouldn't be
scared of revolution because revolution is nothing but change,
and all niggers do is change. . . . Niggers change their hair
from black to red to blond and hope like hell their looks will
change. Niggers kill other niggers just because one didn't
receive the correct change.
The use of "nigger" by the Last Poets is not a reflection of
racial self-abnegation but is, instead, part of a long tradition
in black nationalist rhetoric that uses abusive criticism to
spur action that is intended to erase any factual predicate for
the condemnation voiced. Describing his intention and that
C-
of his colleagues, Umar Bin Hassan, one of the members oof 0
Cc
Many blacks who use "nigger" do so with the aim of tak-E
cz
ing it from anti-black bigots and making it their own. "We
2004/2005
 FINDING A PROPER NAME TO CALL BLACK AMERICANS

take this word that's been a burden to us," the entertainer Ice to make "nigger" off limits to whites. Although the
seek
entertainer Chris Rock freely uses "nigger" himself comed-
Cube declares, and "digest it and spit it back out as a badge
ically,
of honor." They are engaging in verbal jujitsu, seeking to he objects to whites tilling the same ground. "This
word [nigger] is like the only thing white people can't do.
transform "nigger" from an insult into a term of endearment
That's
or gesture of solidarity. This strategy, like all of the rest, is the only reason anybody writes about it. It's like white
people
controversial. Some who reject it assert that it will only suc- cannot believe there's a thing that exists that they
can't do." Spike Lee asserts that because he is African
ceed in spreading confusion and giving permission to racists
American he should be permitted to put "nigger" into the
to use an insult they had heretofore feared to use openly.
mouths
Others who reject the "flipping" tactic remain skeptical of of his characters on film. Lee declares, though, that
the mentality of those who assert that they He
aredespises
free being calledbecause Quentin Tarrantino is white, he ought not
"African American. "
of self-denigration and can use nigger without be permitted by public opinion to put the N-word
being soiled by it. Chuck D, one of the pioneers of rap into the mouths of his characters. Likewise the social

as a member of the group Public Enemy, denounces critic Michael Eric Dyson maintains that whites
the attempted reclamation of "nigger" by blacks. should stay in their place when it comes to saying
"Black people," he observes, "didn't invent 'nigger.' nigger. He writes approvingly that "most white folk
It was thrown at us, and us accepting it is like some- attracted to black culture know better" than to cross

one just catching garbage and lovin' it." There are, the line created by usage of the N-word. "Nigger," he
however, many terms of identification that were once writes, "has never been cool when spit from white lips."
stigmatizing, but then flipped by their targets andMurray
Albert With varying levels of self-consciousness, then,
turned into labels that are now widely viewed as many blacks enjoy using "nigger" openly them-
selves while insisting simultaneously that it remain verboten
acceptable. Referred to derogatorily by the British as "yan-
kees," many Americans came to describe themselves asto whites. "Nigger" is thus rendered valuable and taboo, a
yan-
kees with pride. Scoffed at contemptuously for decades as of authenticity and a barrier to entry.
badge
"queers," many gays and lesbians now call themselves
* African American: The most broadly influential recent
development
queers with open and joyful defiance. It is worth recalling as in the history of American Negroes' collective
self-naming was Jesse Jackson's campaign to make
well the evolution of certain identifying labels for African
Americans. There was a time when "Negro" was seen by
"African American" the preferred name for blacks. In 1988
at a meeting of organizations gathered to establish a nation-
some as equally insulting as "nigger" and when describing
al black
an African American as "black" was considered by many to agenda, Jackson maintained that '"To be called
be terribly offensive. Just because a word has long beenAfrican
used American has cultural integrity. It puts us in our
proper
in an insulting way does not mean that it cannot be put to dif- historical context. Every ethnic group in this country
has or
ferent uses. The fate of words is not determined by logic a reference to some land base, some historical cultural
history but instead by what people choose to do with theAfrican Americans have hit that level of cultural matu-
base.

words at their disposal. rity." Jackson's effort to link Africa to the black American
experience by dint of labeling was by no means unprece-
Another function of "nigger" has been to create boundaries
between insiders and outsiders, authentic members of the As noted previously, "African" was a favorite term
dented.
of self-identification among blacks in the colonial and early
club and inauthentic wannabees. One boundary is intraracial:
it separates blacks who use nigger from those who donational
not. period. In the 1880s the journalist T. Thomas
Some blacks in the former category see themselves as Fortune
more unsuccessfully advanced the term "Afro-Amer-
authentic than those in the latter category. Indeed, someican."
sig- And in the 1960s and 1970s various tendencies with-
nal their distinction by calling themselves "real niggas."in cultural black nationalism successfully popularized that
term
A second boundary is interracial. It arises from efforts by- as indicated by the establishment of Afro-American
studies departments in many colleges and universities.
some blacks to use nigger to exclude whites from valuable
Reverend Jackson's insistence on the "African American"
cultural turf. Fearful that whites will appropriate, exploit
label, however, pushed it and its variants to a new level of
valuable aspects of black culture, some African Americans

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 THE JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

popularity among people of all races. His initiative made African immigrants . . . nearly tripling since 1990," he
"African American" what it is today: a conventional desig-writes, "the use of African Americans is becomingly increas-
nation for American-born descendants of African slaves. ingly strained."
The campaign in the late 1980s to make "African Some black Americans have objected to African-born
American" the ascendant label for blacks was largely ani- immigrants describing themselves as "African Americans."
mated by two sources that were somewhat in tension with Several years ago a white Zimbabwe-born applicant to a top
one another. One source was a feeling that, taken as a whole,law school caused a furor when he described himself as an
blacks' fortunes were caught up in a long-term decline that"African American" and presumably obtained the benefit of
could only be reversed by an enhanced sense of group soli- racial affirmative action in admission. More recently, disap-
darity. The other source was a feeling that Jesse Jackson's proving whisperings attended descriptions of the
1988 run for the presidency signaled the start of a new eraMozambican-bom Theresa Heinz Kerry as an African
for blacks in the United States - an era of unparalleled pos-American. But objections have also been aimed at "black"
sibilities that might well reach fruition if blacks pooled their African-born immigrants and even the colored American-
resources wisely. born children of African immigrants. During his (losing)
Jackson's campaign in favor of "African American" has campaign for a seat in the United States Senate, Allen Keyes
not been without detractors. Some of the criticism is proce-stressed that he was the descendant of black slaves unlike his
"Nigger has never been
dural, charging that Jackson has acted selfishly rival Barak Obama, the American-born offspring
cool when spit from of a black African father and a white American
and high-handedly in presuming, without consul-
white lips."
tation, to speak on behalf of blacks. Numbers of mother. According to Keyes, he was the "real"
blacks silently agree with Stephan Thernstrom's quip African American in the race - a claim that many
that perhaps the name Jackson really cared most observers found to be distasteful.
about was his own. Some of the criticism is sub- In light of changing demographics and the poten-
stantive. "African American obscures more than it tial for increasingly ugly conflicts between heirs of
illuminates or explains," complains sociologist the African diaspora, McWhorter and others argue
Phillip T. Gay. Gay, who prefers the term "black that, as a matter of prudent generosity, it would make
American," particularly eschews the notion that sense for the descendants of slaves in the United

"African American" is a good label because it Penn Professor States to leave "African American" free for use by
Michael Eric Dyson
accentuates American Negroes' connection with African-born immigrants.
their supposed "homeland." "A homeland is a place to return
Where Do We Go From Here?
to," Gay maintains. But most black Americans can't return
home to Africa because they were never there in the first What is the future of the debate over blacks' self-naming?
place culturally or otherwise." Echoing the defiant response Debate rages with no end in sight because the deployment of
of blacks to the American Colonization Society in the early different labels continues to serve valuable functions for par-
nineteenth century, Gay asserts: "America is the Black ticipants in the debate. Conflict over semantics has been
American homeland." used for a wide variety of purposes. It has been deployed for
More recently, John McWhorter has also expressed dissat- purposes of intraracial stratification (e.g., distinguishing
isfaction with labeling American-born descendants of slaves "real niggaz" from assimilationist Negroes), intraracial
as "African American." Like Gay, McWhorter believes that group therapy (e.g., purging Negroes of ingrained antipathy
that appellation exaggerates American blacks' association toward blackness), interracial struggle (e.g., critiquing a con-
with Africa. A working-class black man in Cincinnati, Ohio, cept of American uniformity with demands that the distinc-
McWhorter asserts, has more in common with a working- tiveness of "African Americans" be recognized), and secur-
class white man in Providence, Rhode Island, than with a ing and displaying individual leadership (e.g., Jesse
black Ghanaian. A second basis of McWhorter's position has Jackson's advocacy on behalf of the African American
to do with the presence in the United States of increasing label). Fashions, preferences, and usages evolve and will
numbers of African-born newcomers. "With the number of continue to do so. Seven years after describing the label

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 FINDING A PROPER NAME TO CALL BLACK AMERICANS

"black" as "baseless" and proclaiming "African American"

a Negro man "boy" or a Negro woman "girl" regardless of
as the label with "cultural integrity," Reverend Jackson
the age or status of the black person in question.
delivered a speech at the Million Man March in Washington,
Still in the grip of their traumatic experience as a people
D.C., in which he never referred to "African Americans" but of the authority to name themselves individually or
deprived
repeatedly referred to "Black men," "Black women," collectively,
and many blacks savor their ability to do so today.
"Black voters." So long as that exercise delivers a pleasurable sense of
African Americans who invest considerable resources in power, one may expect periodic bouts of naming and renam-
creating or re-creating labels of collective identification are ing to recur.
"To be called African
sometimes reproached by observers who note that What about my own preferences? I am eclectic.
American has cultural
dominant groups (e.g., whites in the United States) I regularly use almost all of the terms whose his-
integrit y. "
seldom spend much time and effort attending to tories I have described. I do not routinely refer to
their collective labels. In a pigmentocracy in which blacks as "niggers" or "niggas" in print or conversa-
whites as a group have been massively privileged, tion (though I am not upset if others do so as long as
however, they have no need (or at least lesser need their usage is free of ignorance, indifference, and
than others) to engage in group self-defense. Their intent to injure - so long, in short, as they make a
power as a group offers the luxury of being able to good case for deploying such loaded words). I stay
take for granted their status and image. As the clear of "nigger" in large part because I fear the
implicit standard by which others are measured, problem of mistake. Even if I sought to use the term
whites are substantially relieved of the burden that with the best of intentions, numerous readers, right-
Jesse L. Jackson
attends anxiously questioning whether one's group ly anxious in the face of that word, will misperceive
"measures up." my aims and angrily withdraw their attention.
Blacks are, and for a long time will continue to be, acutely Nor do I typically refer to Negro Americans as "African";
aware that they and their forebears have been subjected to a their Americanization is so thorough that labeling them
massive campaign of denigrating insult that has besmirched "African" strikes me as obfuscatory. I do, however, deploy
their image in America and indeed the world. During the "African American," "black," "colored," and "Negro." I
Middle Passage - the traumatic sojourn from Africa to routinely use them all. I do so for three reasons. The first is
America - the individuality of blacks was almost wholly aesthetic. To reduce monotony I try to lessen the instances in
negated as they were identified and treated as human things which I repeatedly use the same term of identification. The
- nameless animate machines. Later, as slaves born in second reason is ideological. I use a wide range of terms to
America, many blacks suffered the indignity of being named refer to "blacks," "Negroes," "colored folk," and "African
or renamed by white masters, some of whom inflicted upon Americans" to signal a commitment to a politics of expres-
their servants names that oozed mockery: Caesar, Apollo, sion that rejects the tyranny of unreflective fashion. The
Pompey, Cato. After the abolition of slavery, the great mass third reason is sentimental. Some of the people in my life
of Negroes finally became able to name themselves and their whom I have most loved and respected used various terms
children authoritatively in the way that people born free had to refer to African Americans that are now widely seen with
long taken for granted. But assaults against the dignity of disapproval as antiquated. My Grandmother, Lillian Spann,
Negroes continued. Blacks were subjected to a barrage of "Big Mama," an indomitable black woman who magnifi-
racially derogatory insults: "nigger," "coon," "jigaboo," cently raised splendid children, preferred "colored." And for
"porch monkey." Their degraded place was also inscribed much of his career, my former boss, the great jurist
into the American imagination by innumerable representa- Thurgood Marshall, preferred "Negro." Using their pre-
tions of grinning black Sambos, scowling Mammies, and ferred terminology is a way in which I pay homage to these
fawning Stepinfetchits. Not only were blacks long denied figures. CC
o
E
the capital N in Negro, they were also denied courtesy titles If the labels "Negro" and "colored" and "black" and "Afri- ?E
0

- "Mr." or "Mrs." - that others took for granted. And in can American" were good enough for these heroes and hero- (U

many areas prior to the 1960s, it was normal practice to call ines, they are certainly good enough for me. [

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