In Search of a Good Name

By Richard Lacayo

According to the Bible, a good name is worth more than a precious ointment -- and choosing one can be just as sticky. Since December, when Jesse Jackson proposed that the group now called blacks (formerly known as Negroes, and prior to that as colored people) should adopt the designation African American, the idea has been catching on. In a recent poll conducted for TIME by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 61% preferred to be called black, vs. 26% who supported African American. (Though the survey was too small to be statistically valid, it indicated that the name change has made some headway.) The name has also found favor with soul-station disk jockeys and college students, who are quick to correct those who refer to the group by any other term. Politicians, prompt as ever to respond to popular opinion, have concocted their own variations. When he was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ron Brown referred to himself as an "American of African descent."

For groups, as for individuals, taking a new name is a quintessential American act, a supreme gesture of self-creation in the land where Norma Jean Baker became Marilyn Monroe, homosexuals became gays, and Esso became Exxon. But for many blacks, the choice of a word by which others will know them has a special significance. During their centuries of bondage, slaves had names that were often chosen by their masters. Booker T. Washington wrote in his autobiography Up from Slavery that there was one point on which former slaves were generally agreed: "that they must change their names." This process of shucking off so-called slave names, commonly in favor of names with an African or Islamic flavor, persists. Malcolm Little became Malcolm X and then Malik al-Shabazz. Cassius Clay transformed himself into Muhammad Ali. Lew Alcindor became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture. The writer LeRoi Jones converted to Amiri Baraka.

Similarly, for more than a century the descendants of the freedmen have debated what name they should bear as a people. In every instance, a shift in appellation coincided with a new stage in the struggle for equality. In the years after the Civil War, the terms black and negro, favored by slaveholders gave way to the gentler designation colored. Early in this century, when the legal battle against Jim Crow laws was being pressed by the N.A.A.C.P., Negro returned, but with a respectful uppercase N. That gave way to black during the militant days of sit-ins and mass demonstrations during the 1960s. Blunt, proud and unequivocal, black embodied the sheer racial confidence that the civil rights movement had engendered.

Now, with a growing black middle class, the enormous expansion of political power epitomized by Jackson's presidential campaigns, and a burgeoning sympathy with the struggle against South African apartheid, yet another shift may be taking place. Jackson argues that "black tells you about skin color and what side of town you live on. African American evokes a discussion of the world." It was Ramona H. Edelin, president of the National Urban Coalition, who actually proposed the switch in December at a Chicago meeting of black leaders, including Jackson, that was held to plan a summit to set a black agenda for the next century. Edelin says she hoped that encouraging the use of African American "would establish a cultural context for the new agenda we plan to set" at the summit, scheduled for April in New Orleans.

As persuasive as the arguments in favor of a change may be, to some they represent a diversion from more important matters. "This undue concern with our name is a reflection of our powerlessness," says Cornell University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., a leading literary theorist. "I don't really care what we call ourselves. I just want us to get economic and social equality."

Others contend that African American comes no closer to capturing a unique heritage than the word it would replace. S. Allen Counter, a Harvard University professor of neurology, has coined the term Afrindeur Americans to reflect the mingling of African, Indian and European bloodlines. "Historical, biological and cultural integrity is what's in a name," says Counter. "We must be true to all of those." In Los Angeles entertainer John KaSondra has embarked on his own crusade in favor of "Dobanians" -- short for descendants of black African natives in the American North.

The verdict on a new group designation will ultimately be delivered by common usage.* But KaSondra's concoction is an idea whose time will probbly never come. Just think of it: The National Association for the Advancement of Dobanians?

FOOTNOTE: *Until a consensus is reached, TIME will use both black and African American.

With reporting by Sylvester Monroe/ Los Angeles