noun
- a black American of African descent.
adjective
- of or relating to African Americans.
noun
- an American of African descent
adjective
- of or relating to Americans of African descent
isolated instances from at least 1863 (Afro-American is attested in 1853, in freemen’s publications in Canada), but the modern use is a re-invention first attested 1969 (in reference to the African-American Teachers Association) which became the preferred term in some circles for “U.S. black” (noun or adjective) by the late 1980s. Mencken, 1921, reports Aframerican “is now very commonly used in the Negro press.”