African American, was: "AAVE" (the abbrev. itself)

[Joanne M. Despres]

Wow, thanks for the tip.  Did you get your cite from Accessible
Archives, by any chance?

Yes, early examples like this can be misleading if people conclude
from them that there was continuous mainstream use of a term
that merely appeared in print every now and then.  The recent
history of African-American vs. Afro-American really has nothing to
do with these older examples.

Joanne

On 7 Oct 2004, at 7:05, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 03:01:55PM -0400, Joanne M. Despres wrote:
> > FWIW, Frederick Douglass used "African-American" ten years before
> > Waring (reportedly) coined "Afro-American."
> >

Joanne M. Despres, Senior Editor
Merriam-Webster, Inc.
jdespres at merriam-webster.com
http://www.merriam-webster.com