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FREEDOMWAYS                             

FOURTH QUARTER 1968

"Africans" and their repatriation in Africa, led to counter affirmations, that this people considered itself "American," with their principal duty being that of destroying slavery and discrimination in this country, rather than in establishing a new homeland in a forgotten Africa. It is interesting to note, that when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was organized in 1909, there was, according to the late Bishop R. R. Wright, a heated argument among those who argued for "Afro-Americans." It is no less interesting to note, that among those who argued for "Colored," were the two Grimke brother-Archibald, and Francis; Francis had married Charlotte Forten, the granddaughter of James Forte, who had convened the first Convention of "Colored" men 78 years before, in 1831.
As a matter of fact, the word "Negro" was not used in the United States Census as a descriptive of this population until 1880. Through 1860, the racial designations were "White," "free colored," and "slaves." In 1870, the population was designated as "colored"; and only in 1880, for census purposes, did they become "Negroes." A violent argument raged for the next thirty years; should they be "Colored," or "Negroes," or "Afro-Americans"? James Weldon Johnson, early in the 1900's, was arguing for "Aframerican"? George Williams published his fairly definitive History of the Negro In 1883. Successively, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois, argued for "Negro." This author talked to Dr. Du Bois in Ghana, shortly before his death in 1963; I asked the seer why he had advocated the adoption of the descriptive, "Negro." He replied: "It was a short word; it was a strong word; I knew that it had been debased, but I thought it could be resuscitated, and given dignity!"
But in his last, recorded autobiography, Du Bois used "Colored" and "Negro" interchangeably.
From its beginning in the early 1890's, Carl Murphy, of the Baltimore Afro-American, used only "Afro-American"; and Robert S. Abbott, of the Chicago Defender, instructed his editors to use almost and circumlocution to avoid the use of the word, "Negro."
The current and highly emotion-packed adoption of the word "Black" is one of the most significant displays in the history of the race. To maintain the historical appositeness of this people in this article (believing that what a people themselves accept as their identity is that identity), the practice will be followed, of using as a racial designation, that name by which the people called themselves during the period when a particular designation was pre-

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