Word: negro
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...letting clerks know that their advocacy for a certain course of action had degenerated from advice to nuisance ("I'm the one who was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson and confirmed by the Senate of the United States . . . not you); his insistence upon using the word Negro to identify an African American (though recently he had begun to use the term Afro-American); his deep and passionate sympathy for all downtrodden people; the uniqueness of his questioning of attorneys at oral argument (in a case involving the constitutionality of a regulation prohibiting people from sleeping in public parks...
...wife and I spent an evening with Malcolm X. The Law School Forum was sponsoring a debate between him and the president of the Massachusetts NAACP on the future of the Negro in America. Malcolm X was highly controversial. A hundred or so of his supporters were to arrive by bus from New York and sit behind him on the stage. Sanders Theatre was expected to be packed. I had agreed to moderate the event. The evening started with a small dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club...
...debate was to be between two people whom almost everyone at that time would have called Negroes. I wanted to point out to the 1,000 predominantly white Harvard students that the future of Negroes in this country was not a problem just for them. It was of concern to all of us. We were all in this together. But I knew that Malcolm did not like to be called a Negro...
...explained my concern to one of Malcolm's lieutenants sitting next to me at dinner. He said, "Don't you dare call Malcolm a Negro. That word reminds us of `nigger.'" In the early sixties it would have been provocative for me to say that we had two "Blacks." Malcolm's lieutenant suggested that I might say that tonight we had one Black and one Negro. I hardly thought that would do. I leaned across the table and put the question to Malcolm. Without hesitation he replied that although in general he did not like the word Negro, he found...
Political movements seek to establish "proper terminology" for describing ethnic groups about as often as Michael Jackson acquires a new face. "Oriental" is now out, and "Asian" is in. Use of "Indian" is gone, and "Native American" is now acceptable. The outdated terms "Negro" and "colored" have evolved into "African-American." "Person of color" is now acceptable for several groups. When the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson made a call for wider usage of the latter term, he probably didn't realize the can of worms that he was opening...