Antedating of "African-American"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2005 at 09:42:10AM -0400, Joanne M. Despres wrote:
> A while back Jesse Sheidlower reported that the OED staff
> checked an 1854 Accessible Archives passage that included the
> term "African-American" and discovered that the printed text
> actually read "Africo-American."  Would this have been the
> quotation, Jesse?

Yes, this is that quotation.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

> > African-American (OED 1855)
> >
> > 1854 _Frederick Douglass Paper_ 13 Jan. (Accessible Archives)  An Irish
> > fight, and the wickedness of an Irish woman's daughter, can never be used
> > as an argument against the fitness of the African American to enjoy
> > freedom.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro