Southern Workman (Jan., 1904) Vol. 33, No. 1. p. 33-36.

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Do We Need Another Name?

The present-day problems that confront the colored people are so many, serious, and practical, that impractical questions and remote interests do not often intrude themselves into the stirring discussions of to-day. Yet there are quite a respectable few of our thoughtful men and women who are worrying a great deal about the name we shall be known by. They propose nothing less than a complete surrender of the old designations and the adoption of something entirely new and unrelated to past conditions.

Those who are studying and writing upon the question are mostly of the present generation of Negro scholars and writers. They have made the question serious, respectable, and interesting and have succeeded in making the people feel and believe that all the designations by which the American descendants of Africans are known and described are hopelessly and discouragingly associated with all the miseries of bondage and race prejudice; that the existing names are hindrances to progress and persistently suggest inferiority to the educated young men and women of the race. In other words there is now by grace of new laws and new conditions, a new Negro, and in order to force this important fact upon the attention and conscience of the American people, there is needed a new name that shall be more in harmony with the new conditions.

It does seem to be a curious fact that the so-called Negro, or colored race, when considered in all its variety of shade, admixture, and lack of fundamental differences from other native-born Americans, has no exclusively appropriate name. Negro (vulgarized as “nigger”), “colored”, and “Afro-American”, are the various designations of the race of people once held in American slavery.

The chief objection urged against the term Negro is that it is not ethnically descriptive when applied to hundreds of thousands of people who have been so completely transformed as to leave no physical resemblance to any of the African races. A mulatto, a quadroon, an octoroon, or a creole, is not a Negro except by a false classification, based upon the common condition of an inferior status.

The milder term “colored” is the one name that is suggestive of progress toward respectful recognition. In the use of the terms “nigger” and “colored” there is generally all the difference of sentiment that there is between the terms hatred and kindness, contempt and respect.

As a race name, of course, the word “colored” is lacking in precision and ethnic meaning, and its application is certainly attended with much confusion and error. Yet the name is largely favored, because it has been, and still is, the first refuge of those whose feelings toward the Negro have been changed from hatred and mistrust into kindness and confidence. This indefinite name is in favor by reason of its lack of essential or deep significance. It is thought that as the race progresses more and more towards the full enjoyment of all the blessings of equality in American life, the significance of the term “colored” will gradually fade as a term of difference and will finally become a mere term of convenience, having no deeper sense than the name brunette. When it is remembered that the so-called Negro race, or colored race, is in language, religion, and instinct as thoroughly American as any of the other races who have come to America and lost their race identity, there is no reason why thousands of them should be known and designated as anything else than Americans.

Yet many of the best thinkers and writers in this discussion are fiercely opposed to the further use of the meaningless term “colored” people. To quote one of them:

“Just listen to, the name colored! Apologetic, somewhat tasteless, and falsely euphemistic. Imagine succeeding under the discouragement of such a nickname! Cats may be colored, rainbows colored, rags may be colored, but men never!”

The discussion has now narrowed down to the comparative merits of the old historic word Negro, and the somewhat new, hyphenated term Afro-American. What is being written in defense of these terms is something almost entirely new to American thought. The sciences—ethnology, geography, and sociology—have all been called in to do service in this novel battle for a name.

Professor DuBois writes:—

“Finally, then, what of the name Negro ? Here is a term strong, definite, distinct, and great. There is no doubt whom the user means —that dark and harsh-haired people who from the world’s dawn have dwelt within the bosom of the sun ! How rich and pregnant with history and legend comes the name out of the dark past. It points to something more than a hero history ; it points to a human history; to half-divine Negro melodies, to Negro slavery, and the bitter, withering sorrow; then, too, to the day of emancipation and the hard, dogged struggle in a smiling world—a creeping toward the truth which shall make us free. What word more clearly shows that this vast people is a human, living, growing, world-spirit, who must and will be free not only in body, but in mind. No pent-up Utica. I am a Negro and a Negro's son."

Dr. A. R. Abbott, of Toronto, thus contends for the term Afro-American:—

“A new and distinctive name is required. I know of no other so appropriate as Afro-American. It may appear stilted and classical, but it will serve the purpose until some better can be devised to take the place of the misnomers now in use. The Afro-American race has reached that stage when its achievements are forming an important factor in the development of the modern civilization, and it does not propose to have its achievements buried under a cloud of tradition, superstition, and ignorance. The Negro may have a history, but the less said about it the better. We are a new race and so distinctly differentiated as to possess all the elements of permanency and growth."

Both of these scholars seem to admit the difficulty of this problem. There are so many Negroes who are not Negroes, so many colored people who are not colored, and so many Afro-Americans who are not Africans that it is simply impossible even to coin a term that will precisely designate and connote all the people who are now included under any one of the terms mentioned.

It seems reasonably certain that the persons in America to whom the term Negro is applicable and ethnically descriptive, will retain that name and endeavor to make it something strong and proud among the race names of the world. The people to whom this term is not properly applicable, but who, nevertheless, under existing conditions, are always included in that name, will come more and more to be exclusively designated by the less definite and less distinctive term, colored.

It certainly does not seem sensible to change the name of a whole race of people in order to forget, or in some way hide from, the misfortunes suffered by the American branch of that race. History will take much better care of that misfortune and place the responsibility therefor more accurately than the race itself can do by giving up an established name. Then again there is always something just a little sinister in the suggestion of a changed name. All the enslaved races of the world have gained in glory by struggling progressively upward with their names preserved and glorified by achievement.

Let the race preserve the name by which it is known and fill it more and more with the splendors of its self-emancipation from the miseries and dependencies that have thus far made the name a term of reproach in a Christian nation.