May 23, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) -- After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping its use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in surveys.
Instead of the term that came into use during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern labels "black" or "African-American."
Nicholas Jones is chief of the Census Bureau's racial statistics branch. He tells The Associated Press that the change will take effect next year, when the bureau distributes its annual American Community Survey to more than 3.5 million U.S. households.
According to Jones, months of public feedback and census research concluded that few black Americans still identify with being Negro, and many view the term as offensive and outdated.
The term Negro was first used in the census in 1900.
