I went to an overwhelming black inner city high school in the late 70s/early 80s and I learned quite a bit about the culture and never once heard the term African-American. (Very rarely you would hear the term Afro-American). Negro and colored were considered old fashioned but not necessarily offensive. (Ads for the United Negro College Fund were ubiquitous). And many of my friends lived in the “ghetto,” not the “community.” Then, when I was in college in the early 80s, I remember reading in the New York Times that, effective immediately, blacks would be known as “African-Americans.” It sounded silly then and I guess it’s already becoming a dirty word.
About ten or so years ago, maybe more, a black Congresswoman was giving a speech on the House floor where she was extolling the virtues of South African blacks and she could not bring herself to use the word ‘black’, which apparently was on the paper she was reading from.
She instead hesitated and hemmed and hawed until she finally said ‘African-American Africans’..............