The U.S. Census Bureau is dropping the term “Negro” on its surveys and forms after more than 100 years of use. The outdated title will be reduced to the options of “black” or “African-American,” according to officials.
The agency will reportedly include the new language in next year’s annual American Community Survey, which reaches approximately 3.5 million households in the United States. The discussion of cutting the term “Negro” popped up during the 2010 Census; it was ultimately chosen to be included on the forms.
The bureau believed that there was still a segment of the U.S. population that identified with the term, most of them being older Blacks living in the South.
But Nicholas Jones, chief of the bureau’s racial statistics branch, says public feedback confirms that the term is “offensive” and that the Black population no longer identifies with the word.
“Negro” first appeared on the U.S. Census in 1900 to identify people of African descent, before being deemed insulting during the civil rights and black power movements.
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