For example they argue. "Black has no reference to land or ethnic origins." Africa represents land and ethnicity. Thus, we are Africans and not Blacks. So as contemporary Cultural Nationalism took root, it thrived on the personal African name and the new description of Blacks in America as African Americans. Meanwhile, the name African-American became in vogue. It has become popular and politically correct for White people to address Blacks as African-Americans. Also the Civil Rights Movement and the integrationists who are on the fringes of Cultural Nationalists Dog-Ma have accepted the term African-American.

Soon the name for Black folk and a personal African name became the accepted symbol for Black consciousness. Thus if you had an African name or some name foreign to most ears accustomed to English "You were down." That means you were/are in the know and "Real Black," "I mean real African."

Cross Theory of Nigrescence:

“Cross theory of Nigrescence is the theory of becoming “Black” (Cross, 1991). According to Cross, this theory consists of 5 stages. Pre-encounter, the first stage occurs prior to an African American sensing a need to change his or her identity. One's racial identity at this point is based on factors other than race such as church and family. Encounter, the second stage occurs when the African American experiences an event usually racial in nature that makes him or her begin to rethink his or her current identity. The next stage immersion which consists of two phases, encompasses the individual becoming deeply engrained in any activity or organization associated with being" Black". This may be evidenced by the individual changing their name or attire to that of Afrocentricity, or becoming involved in organizations of African American regardless of their purposes. The decisions to select certain organizations and to engage in certain activities are classified as being irrational and often erratic. Emersion, the next phase occurs when the individual's radical behavior in the previous stage begins to change. The individual begins to realize the irrationality of their behavior and begins to focus on the nature and purpose of their selected activities. The fourth stage internalization is where the individual begins to internalize his or her newly developed activity. The individual is now able to appreciate the identity and cultural views of others while feeling fine with their own. The final stage is commitment where the individual becomes committed to others to help them develop their identity (Cross, 1991).”

Slaves, straight from Africa, were stripped of their names. Some were renamed on the ship as they were transported to the United States. On many slave ships, the first man and woman to walk aboard were named Adam and Eve. However, their owners named most African slaves. There were several trends used in naming slaves. But however African slaves were named; it was always an act of taking away their identity and forcing a new one upon them.

One of the most popular ways to name slaves was to give them Biblical names. White slave owners often worked very hard to convert their slaves to Christianity; in addition, they used the Bible and Christianity to validate their right to own slaves.

The other big trend in naming slaves was to use demeaning names. Slave owners wanted to put slaves in their place. Many slave owners used fancy, prestigious names like Plato, Hercules, Romeo, and Aphrodite. By giving such powerful, strong names to slaves, they poked fun at the slaves' position and mocked their lack of power and freedom. When slaves were given currently popular names, they were usually given a short, common version like Tom, Sam, Lil, and Cass. These names were generic and unpretentious. They encouraged the idea that all slaves were the same, rather than unique individuals. Non-names were another way to avoid seeing slaves as individuals; indeed they urged slave owners to look at slaves as non-human. Non-names included choices like Princess, Tiny, Buck, and Red; they were not considered true names as slaves were often not considered true people.

The Civil War brought many freedoms to former slaves including the freedom to name themselves and their children as they pleased. There was an immediate influx of names forbidden by slave owners like Abraham (Lincoln, of course), Moses (the Bible figure who led the Israelites to freedom), and Nat (after Nat Turner, leader of an anti-slavery movement). Names reveling in the victory of the war were widespread; thousands of babies were named Freedom, Liberty, Joy, Independence, and Glory. Former slaves commonly changed their own names. Those with nicknames like Tom, Sue, Joe, and Abby began going by Thomas, Susannah, Joseph, and Abigail. Former slaves used naming and renaming as a way of proclaiming their freedom and claiming their identity.

The Civil War was not the only great movement to affect African American naming practices. During the civil rights movement, many African Americans began looking for their ancestral and cultural history. The Black Muslim movement that began in the 1950s and 60s persuaded many African Americans to turn to Islam, the traditional religion of many African nations, particularly the nations from which it was common to take slaves. Muslim groups, especially the Nation of Islam, encouraged African Americans to renounce their "slave names" in favor of traditional African and Muslim names. Many well-known African Americans changed their names including Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little), Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay), and Louis Abdul Farrakhan (born Louis Walcott).

As http://www.swagga.com/name.htm notes: “African names are gorgeous, charming and melodic even to the English speaking ear. They also have phenomenal meanings and unique histories. In Africa the birth of a child is an event of great exultation and importance. So great significance is attached to the naming of the child. The hopes of the ancestors, the status of the family, current occurences and celestial events are use in naming the child. It is believed that the name chosen will exert an influence for better or for worse on the life of the child. Also you as an adult can choose a name that truly signifies you as a person. For example if you are a female born on Tuesday you can choose a name such as "Abena" which means, born on Tuesday. You can change your name in the blink of an eye. It is legal for an adult to change his/her name in most countries including the USA. The main requirement is simply consistent use of the new name without fraudulent intent. But for it to be official you would have to obtain a court order or whatever legal requirement for your community. So throw off that European label that was put on us during the MAAFA (African Holocaust of Slavery, Imperialism, Colonialism and Racism). Reach out and grasp that force that truly identifies you. Reach out and reclaim your African Name, so when someone addresses you, you know and they know that they have just identified a proud person of African descent.”

Afrikan Names and The Struggle for Self-Determination and Self-Definition

Ahati N. N. Toure writes: “When "Job ben Solomon" arrived in chains on the shores of early eighteenth century Maryland, kidnapped from the Senegal-Gambia region of West Afrika, he must have been appalled not only at the indignity of his new condition, but deeply insulted by the name his European Christian enslavers had assigned him.

After all, Ayuba Suleiman Ibrahima Diallo, a Muslim, was a successful Fulbe merchant who was "born into an important clerical family from Bondu, where he studied alongside the future king of his people," notes one scholar. He already had an identity and a name. He was not interested in a European or a Christian one.

So it was with our ancestors. Some, declaring their independence from European enslavement, renamed themselves. Others preserved their Afrikan names and an Afrikan tradition of naming, or translated them into the English language.

In the first category, and perhaps the first Afrikan to change his name in recorded United States history, is Paul Kofi (spelled Cuffee at the time), a wealthy nineteenth century Boston shipbuilder who discarded his enslaver's name, Slocum, in favor of his father's name. Kofi, a Ghanaian (Akan, Ewe) name, means a male born on Friday.

It was Kofi who, through his riches, financed the repatriation of US-held Afrikans to Sierra Leone. "Be not fearful to come to Africa, which is your country by right," he wrote to those he had left behind. "Africa, not America, is your country and your home."

At least 70 percent of US-held Afrikans' ancestors came from scores of Mande (West Afrikan) and Bantu (Central Afrikan) ethnic groups, who in the early years of US captivity "identified strongly with their African culture and heritage as demonstrated in the retention of African personal names and naming practices," write scholars Joseph E. Holloway and Winifred K. Vass.

Afrikan names were particularly popular in the 1700s, declining in use in the 1800s, and all but abandoned in the 1900s, the authors observe. "As a direct result of pressures from white Americans," they explain, Afrikans in the 1900s "gave up their Africanity and began to conform to the traditions and practices of Western Europe."

That notwithstanding, Afrikans of various political persuasions in the United States, such as cultural anthropologist Dr. Marimba Ani; cultural theorist Dr. Molefi Kete Asante; Kwanzaa creator and Kawaida theorist Dr. Maulana Karenga; revolutionary poet Askia Muhammad Toure; poet, writer, and publisher Haki R. Madhubuti; the late Pan Afrikanist and revolutionary Kwame Ture; Jackson, Mississippi, lawyer Chokwe Lumumba; US-held political prisoner and prisoner of war Sundiata Acoli; political author Oba T'Shaka; Howard University law professor Nkechi N. Taifa; political scientist and New Afrikan nationalist Dr. Imari Abubakari Obadele; Africentric psychologist Dr. Kobi Kazembe Kalongi Kambon; Ifa priest, publisher, and author Chief Fasina Falade; and mystic scholar Ra Un Nefer Amen I are only a few of those in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries who are following the tradition of Afrikan ancestors of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Even the late great civil rights leader Rev. Ralph David Abernathy -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s best friend and his successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- remarked that while he did not feel the need to change his family name from a European to an Afrikan one, "I certainly sympathize with such feelings."

Abernathy named his youngest child Kwame Luthuli (probably after Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah and South Africa's Nobel Peace laureate Albert Luthuli). This was apparently informed by Abernathy's very Afrikan philosophy about names. "There is much meaning in a name," he said. "If you are given the right name, you start off with certain indefinable but very real advantages."

But Afrikans in the United States are not alone in renaming themselves. "In Africa many people and some countries have changed their names following independence," wrote Dr. Ihechukwu Madubuike, a Nigerian who in the 1970s researched the subject. One of the more notable examples is the former Zaire's (now renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo) late billionaire dictator, who at age 42 cast off the name of his Belgian colonizers, Joseph-Desire, to rename himself Mobutu Sese Seko.

This new trend of reclaiming Afrikan names went against the programming of the colonizer's assault on Afrikan culture, notes Dr. Madubuike. In colonial Afrika everything Afrikan was considered "primitive, barbarous, unholy," whereas everything European was considered "pure and proper -- civilized," he wrote. "To answer to a white man's name was seen as one of the ways of becoming civilized, that is white. Thus, today, one frequently meets an African who will not be content until you have told him what your white, Christian name is."

Omowale Malcolm X, who had a gift for making a point with compelling directness, summed up the whole matter of names in this way: "Realizing that Little is an English name, and I'm not an Englishman, I gave the Englishman back his name."

Employers Play Name Game to Bypass Laws

BYLINE: By Kimberley L. Phillips. Kimberley L. Phillips, an associate professor of history and American studies at the College of William and Mary, is completing a book on African-American culture and militarism.

And now more evidence to confirm that racism trumps merit when people apply for jobs.

According to a study by researchers at MIT and the University of Chicago, employers assign racial biases to names on resumes. In the study, applicants with names such as Tyrone and Tamika got classified as black and had twice the rejection rate of those named Brett and Jill, who were categorized as white. It did not matter if the applicant named Karim had superior qualifications to Brian's. Karim was "black." Funny - corporate America has sought minorities as customers and yet has stayed stupidly resistant to them as employees.

I hope employers recognize that their use of name bias as a wily way around fair employment laws will only get harder. Walk into America's classrooms, growing more racially diverse by the day, and listen to teachers jazz out names that have transcended racial and ethnic borders erected in workplaces. These days, Karim is not always black and Brittney is not always white.

Hardly acts of unconscious racism, employers' practice of winnowing out applicants by associating names with racial stereotypes has had a long, sad history. Until recently, anyone with an Irish, Jewish, Hispanic or Asian name typically faced exclusion from clubs, jobs and higher education. Concerned that employers might consider their names "too foreign," many Asian immigrants have changed theirs to Mike or Annie. After Sept. 11, Muslims discovered how quickly people associated their names with terrorist activities. Such practices were wrong 50 years ago, and they are blatantly flouting anti-discrimination laws now.

Would African-Americans' access to jobs increase if they changed their names? Should the Rasheeds and Karims use first initials? Given the pressure to assimilate into the dominant language and culture - evidenced by battles over bilingual education - many blacks and other minorities have vigorously debated the consequences of maintaining native languages and names considered too ethnic.

But as the study shows, even if blacks change their names, it might not help. The researchers found something more chilling: Employers even used surnames to determine who was black, proving that the bias is even deeper than we might think. Regardless of a first name, some employers assigned blackness to surnames like Washington and Johnson.

The pervasive discounting of merit that the study uncovered, no doubt, bolstered African- Americans' support for affirmative action. In the end, the onus should remain on employers to obey the law. Uncoupling racist biases from names would be an important step.

Since the 1960s, many blacks have consciously chosen African-inspired names, but most of us have names that have emerged from the encounter between Europeans, Africans and Native Americans. Many names popular for African-Americans have had equal popularity with European Americans.

White Americans' obsession with racist categorizations has coexisted with their penchant for borrowing blacks' language. Words such as "bad," "funky" and "stupid" have African origins and have added to the distinctiveness of American Standard English. "Wassup" and "Air Jordan" signify how much the wealth of corporate America depends on African-Americans. I wonder if some of these same employers rejected Tamika's resume.

Many Americans have no such biases against other cultures. Most likely bowled over by their beautiful sounds, African names such as Kara and Tara have become popular choices for white and Asian-American girls. Ashley and Brittney, Michael and Jordan, are names as popular among African-Americans and Hispanics as they are with white Americans. Nina and Luis are popular everywhere. As the writer Ralph Ellison noted, how we name ourselves says something about us as a people.

After employers have fully comprehended the illegalities of racializing names as a way to defy the law, they should read any baby-name book, where they'll learn that Karim means "merciful."

The purpose behind changing your name from the book "Returning to Your Roots" by Khaeem Ben Yisrael

Changing one's name is nothing new the practice dates back as far as Biblical antiquity. However in modern times it has been looked down upon especially in the African American community where the total shed of Europeanization has not totally occurred. Your name is in fact who you are. The name you carry represents your purpose and destiny. Yah compelled the patriarch Jacob to change his birth name because his name literally meant "trickster". Yah had a divine plan for Jacob's descendants and his birth name did not bare witness to such a future so Yah later renamed Jacob Yisrael which literally means "he will rule as Yah" this name would be more suitable to his purpose.

In the African American community today it has been common for those who are ignorant to this divine knowledge to simply make up a name based solely on phonetic sounds with no true meaning at all. This is part of the reason why we have a generation of young people who have no sense of purpose. In our Hebrew culture the naming of a child is extremely important and not to be taken lightly. Many modern day Hebrew believe that when you give your child a proper name you are taking the first step towards placing them on the right path in life.
If you are in the process of "returning" to the proper faith and culture of your biblical forefathers and are considering changing your birth name I suggest that you study the matter carefully. Choose a name that best suits who you really are or what your aspire to be. Meaning, if you have a particular vision for your life or family chooses a name that best defines that vision. Try your best to resist the temptation of satisfying your ears with a name that simply sounds good. Satisfy your soul and spirit by choosing a name that will spell out to the world who you are.

The Function of Slave Names

Who Named the Slaves?

Early slaveholders in Pennsylvania, like their counterparts in other states, assigned names to their slaves as a means not only of identification--few slaveholders wanted to bother to learn the African name of the person he had just bought--but also as a means of defining their authority in the new relationship of master and slave. To further reinforce their role as the important party, and to help demean the role of the slave, slaveholders usually chose short, familiar versions of formal names. A Lancaster County slaveholder, Elizabeth Ramsey, a widow in Bart Township, registered a new slave infant, born of the slave Hester, on August 5th, 1789 as follows: "Now these are to certify [that] She the said Hester, was on the Night of the Thirteenth or the Morning of the fourteenth Day of March Last, Delivered in my house of a Male Child by us Named Peet." So the names "Pete," "Jem," or "Joe" were used, instead of "Peter," "James," or "Joseph." "Rebeccah," "Virginia," and "Abigail" became "Beck," "Gin," and "Abby." Some names, such as "Dinah," "Sukey" and "Cuff" do not have formal equivalents, and seem to have been used almost exclusively for slaves.

As time passed, however, the naming privileges began to gradually shift from the slaveholder to the parents of the slave. In 1797, John Whitehill of Donegal Township, Lancaster County, registered with the clerk "a female child which seems to be called Susanna or Sooky by her and by the family in general, the daughter of negro Hannah, a female slave." John Hubley, the Lancaster County clerk responsible for keeping the slave registration books, in 1809 recorded "that his mulatto servant wench who is duly registered at Lancaster, was on the 12th day of January last past, delivered of a female mulatto child which she named Rachel." Five years later Hubley would again register a child, the four month-old son of his slave Hannah, noting of the child "which she named Nelson." That same year John Gundacker of the Borough of Lancaster reported to the clerk "that his mulatto servant wench, Grace. . .was on July 12, 1814, delivered of a male mulatto child, which she calls and has named Abraham." The majority of registrations of slave children do not indicate who named the child. Perhaps the reason that those instances noted above did record the information was because allowing the slave mother to pick a name for her child was a novelty, and showed a certain humanitarian gesture on the part of the slaveholder.

African Names

Very few slaves show up in records with their original African names intact. Slaveholders disliked and discouraged the use of names which sounded strange to them, and as noted above, the power to rename a person at will reinforced the role of the slaveholder as the person in charge. Only one known slave was registered with a name which may be African in origin. William Hay of Londonderry Township, Lancaster County (later Dauphin County) registered a 26 year-old female slave named "Dembigh" in 1780. "Dembigh" is very close to the African "Dembi," a traditional male name meaning "peace." No other instances of traditional African names have come to light, showing how completely original African names were suppressed in slaves brought to Pennsylvania. One additional instance, from Philadelphia County, does specifically mention the slave's African name, and helps to explain this phenomenon. The item is a runaway notice from 1763, which advertises for the return of "Jupiter, though it is likely he may call himself by his Negroe Name, which is Moeyon, or Oantee." Despite the slaveholder's awareness of his slave's original African name, he refers to him by the slave name "Jupiter," and no doubt used that name in official papers concerning this slave. If not for the escape of this slave, the African names "Moeyon" and "Oantee" would never have been known.

Manipulating Names

Slave Surnames

Slaves were rarely given surnames when being named by their owners. A first, or "given" name was all that most slaveholders would acknowledge most slaves by. Upon registration, in papers relating to the sale or transfer of ownership of a slave, and in other legal documents, few slaves were allowed the dignity of being identified by anything other than a single name.

Those few surnames which do appear in legal documents are usually found in documents dated after 1788, the point at which Pennsylvania began to require registration of the children of slaves. Surnames appear with increasing frequency in slave registrations during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, although even in the final few years of registrations, most returns still did not mention the surnames of those slaves being recorded.

Unlike given names, slaves appear to have chosen their own surnames in cases where a surname did not already exist for them. Evidence of this appears in the wording of runaway notices that list both the slave's given name and the name that the slaveholder believed the slave will use. As early as 1755, Mordecai Moore of Chester County placed an advertisement for a slave "named Jack, but is generally known by the name of John Powell." William Chesney of York County placed an ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1769 for a slave who had managed to get away while Chesney and the slave were travelling through an unsettled area of what is now Dauphin County : "RUN away, on the 13th of March last, from the Subscriber, at Sasquenanna, near Harris Ferry, a Negroe Man, called Will, alias William Keith." In Cumru Township, Berks County, the slaveholder David Evans advertised in 1770 for his escaped slave "Dick, alias John Linch." In late December, 1794, Benjamin Duncan of Dauphin County placed an ad in the Pennsylvania Gazzette for the escaped 17 year-old slave he listed only as "Sam." That slave was captured and jailed five months later in Chester County, giving his name to the jailor as "Sam Roach."

That slaveholders considered these surnames illegitimate, or an alias, underscores the belief that these were names chosen not by the slaveholders, but by the slaves themselves, perhaps as a way to counter their status. The surnames also do not appear to have any relation to the slaveholder to which the slaves were associated. If indeed the slaves chose their own surnames, they did not, as commonly believed, choose the surnames of the slaveholders associated with them. A look at the known slave surnames shows that most were commonly found surnames in the local area: Miller, Martin, Smith, Butler, Stewart, George and Jenkins all show up in Dauphin County. Cogan, Harris, Armstrong, Collins, Parker and Green are slave surnames found in Cumberland County. Lancaster County had slaves named Lewis, Jackson, Hunt, Brown, Bailey, Myers and Peters. The preponderance of common surnames among slaves, and the belief that those surnames were chosen by the slaves themselves, suggests that slaves chose surnames with a desire to fit into everyday society, and not to be set apart from it.

How Slaves Changed Their Names

Even though slaves were assigned slave names by slaveholders, the slaves did not necessarily accept and use those names, especially in the company of anyone other than the slaveholder. Many slaves who had lofty-sounding mythological names, or belittling informal names, used common names of their own choosing in private. Runaway slaves, in particular, were known to change their names. In 1778, a 36 year-old Bucks County slave who was captured on suspicion of being a runaway gave his name to the jailor as Tim, but the jailor determined that his slave name was Ben. Tim was in the company of another slave "who calls himself HARRY, sometimes WILL," according to the advertisement placed by the jailor. That same year a slaveholder placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Packet seeking the return of "Sukey Brown," who had run away with her husband James, a free Black. "Sukey," however, was by that time going by the name of Lucy Brown (1, George F. Nagel).

Jacob Shoemaker of Berks County purchased at public sale a jailed runaway slave named Bill from the county jailor "for his prison fees, for the space of five months" in 1776. Shoemaker later found that the slave's "right name is Jerry, imported from Barbados, and run away from his master in Carolina." Another runaway, "London," temporarily taken into custody in 1778 in Delaware, made good a second escape from a bounty hunter seeking to return him to his owner in Cumberland County. The owner, James Young, noted that he was "a cunning artful fellow," and that he "changed his name to Daniel Anderson." Ironmaster Peter Grubb of Lancaster County's Hopewell Forge placed an ad in 1781 for the return of Abel, a slave who ran away from a Chester County slaveholder two years earlier. Grubb noted in the ad "It is probable he will pass for a freeman, he having got a pass from a free Negroe, named NAT, and may pass by that name" (1, George F. Nagel).

Jailors, advertising for slaveholders to come pick up their escapees and pay their costs, quickly learned to phrase their ads cautiously, using terms such as "he calls himself..." and "she says her name is..." to identify a jailed slave, rather than simply list the name given by the prisoner (1, George F. Nagel).

Slaveowners in the American antebellum South were especially opposed to slaves having family names because such names emphasized family ties -- and the only legally recognized tie of a slave was to his owner, who could sell him miles away from his kin.

The slaves themselves, however, used family names to create a sense of family, though they were careful not to use these names around whites. Even after Emancipation, blacks that had been raised in slavery often hesitated when some white person asked them their family name.

El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X) speaking to American Blacks, explains:
"You're nothing but Africans. Nothing but Africans."

The use of "X" as a replacement for a given last name is part of this rhetorical strategy. Malcolm X urged all African-Americans to reject their last names, which were those of slave-owners, replacing them with "X" to stand for the lost African names of their ancestors. Thousands belonging to the Nation of Islam adopted this practice. Because the "X" substituted for last names, it defined members of the Nation as a single "family" of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. The use of "X" also bracketed the names of other African-Americans, implicitly declaring that all of them were mistakenly identifying with whites, their slave masters.

Askia Muhammad writes:
“Today, there is hardly a professional or major college football or basketball team in America that does not have at least one player with a Muslim name. The political establishment, journalism, broadcasting, and the entertainment industries have also come to grips with Blacks using Muslim names, “free names,” African names, in their ranks.”
Uhuru Hotep writes:

To de-colonize the African mind, African freedom-seekers must destroy their deeply rooted, interconnecting networks of internalized European or Arab values and beliefs. These are the invisible chains of mental slavery that for centuries have allowed Europeans and Arabs to manipulate and control them, first as slaves and religious converts, and now as pseudo-citizens. Sankofa practice is an indispensable weapon in the war to de-colonize or re-Africanize the African mind.

In conclusion, Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III writes:
For me to abandon African identity, even if the years have dimmed our memory and our perspective about it, is to choose to abandon the fruits of the labors of our ancestors and to leave the family, our nurturing source. It is to choose not to be, not to exist! The love, pride, and bond that I feel for our African family is no more intense than the respect I feel for other non-African families, and even admiration for them, if non-hegemonic. Yes, I cannot really respect others unless I love us.

Money and political power are basic to our struggle. There are those who believe that we must start there. Some say that the cultural matters will have to wait. Some even argue that the solution to our problem is to forget culture and to organize our social class. Money and political power are definitely important, however, a real world look reveals that money, political power and culture cannot be separated. It is a matter of both or neither. In fact, there are not now nor have there ever been any non-cultural or a cultural group who accumulated wealth and power. Notice how the real world is configured ethnically.

We are not only at a fork in the road, we may be at the last moment in time when we can still marshal our forces, regroup, and teach ourselves the things that we need to know, create a reunion and a resurrection of our family. The farther we move from our cultural source, the weaker we will become. To be African or not to be, that is truly the question.

It is round 15 of a 15-round fight. Are we really overwhelmed? Do we really want to win? Do we believe that we can take charge of ourselves? Do we even have the will to do so? Can we say, as Wade Nobles has framed it. " I am because we are, and because we are
Therefore I am!"

Can we change from being adjectives to the proper noun, like everyone else in the world? Can we abandon the terms, "colored," "negro," "at-risk," "minority," "diverse," "the poor," "the oppressed," and "third world," and just be African, with all of the responsibility that being a family member requires? There really is no other viable choice.”

References:

1. Article written by George F. Nagle from - Nafrolumens Project - Names Used for Enslaved People in Pennsylvania - http://www.afrolumens.org/slavery/names.html

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