https://aaregistry.org/story/negro-the-word-a-history/
Negro (the word), a story
The word Negro is discussed on this date's Registry. This article and its references are written to add to the history of this word.
Negro means "black" in both Spanish and Portuguese languages, is derived from the Latin word niger of the same meaning. The term "negro", literally the Spanish and Portuguese to refer to Black Africans and people with that heritage used “black.” From the 18th century to the mid-20th century, "negro" (later capitalized) was considered the correct and proper term for African Americans. It fell out of favor by the 1970s in the United States.
In current English language usage, "Negro" generally is considered acceptable in a historical context or in the name of older organizations, as in the United Negro College Fund, and is used more commonly by those born before the post-World War II baby boom. Lyndon B. Johnson was the last American president to publicly refer to the African American population as Negroes (to which, for much of his life, he gave the Texas pronunciation nigras, widely considered an insult by African Americans). Before he left office, he had begun to employ the word
