Old Fart chiming in here...50's we were told to not use the word Negro anymore but instead use the word colored.
60's we were told to use the word black because "No one colored me!" was the mantra.
70's up through present we were told to use the term African-American because of the mythological TV series Roots. (It was also about this time that names that do not make any sense at all were started. Male names usually ended in an "N" or "N-sound" such as D'Juan and Antoine. Female names usually ended in an "A" such as Tanesha, Trashondra or, my favorite, L-A which is Le-Dash-A.)
Multiple confusion has resulted as the terms "Black" "African-American" "Person of Color" are now used by different subsets of their...um...culture as these names and monikers associate them to a continent with which they have as much in common as they do the Man in the Moon.
And now we have the term "Teen" which the LSM has adopted to refer to any marauding band of feral youths who FReepers refer to as Amish.
Thus I now use the terms "Teen" and "Post-Teen" when referencing them so as not to offend their delicate sensibities.