depending on your age (cough cough, I am in my 70’s)being called negro, colored, mulatto were not taken as insults. There was a thriving black middle class in the cities, but with busing, they moved out of the cities just like the whites did. No one wanted to put their kids on a bus for an hour long ride to another school in a strange neighbor hood. That included black Americans, but it was not a hyphenated word in those days...One of the councilmen(Detroit) was a black, and he said it was an insult to him and his children to say they couldn’t learn unless they sat next to a white child....I'd be interested in knowing your experiences during that time....GG
depending on your age (cough cough, I am in my 70’s)being called negro, colored, mulatto were not taken as insults. I remember during the Civil Rights era, the term, negro, was entirely acceptable to black folks, though in my own family we called ourselves 'colored'.
The term, mulatto, wasn't something that anyone would proudly wear on their sleeve, as far as I knew. My family was very close to that description, and it was a never-ending source of tension for us. After all, how black can you really be, if your dad can almost pass for white, and your mom looks like a Louisiana Creole?
But, I was too young to care one way or another about any of it, and was just happy being an American kid.