What's in a name? African American Ethnic Identity Terms and Self-Determination

African Americans have experienced several shifts in the predominant terms used to describe their ethnic identity in the past several decades. A current taxonomy of African American labels and associated meanings for those labels was developed as a result of this study. The dominant terms, Black and African American, expressed different views of ethnic identity, with Black generally providing a sense of unity and acceptability and African American expressing the experience of a blended heritage. A trend was detected in the transition from the usage of the term Black toward the term African American, which indicates a positive move toward self-determination and progress in meeting the challenge of communicating within two cultures.