Colored is a term once widely used in the United States to refer to black people (i.e., persons of sub-Saharan African ancestry; members of the "black race") and Native Americans. It should not be confused with the more recent term people of color, which generally refers to all "non-white peoples".
In other English-speaking countries, the term has varied meanings. In South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the term Coloured refers both to a specific ethnic group of complex mixed origins, which is considered neither black nor white, and in other contexts to people of mixed race; in neither context is its usage considered derogatory. In British usage, the term refers to "a person who is wholly or partly of non-white descent" and its use may be regarded as antiquated or offensive, and other terms are preferable, particularly when referring to a single ethnicity.
Read more about Colored: History in America
Famous quotes containing the word colored:
“The colored people arrive, sit firmly down,
Eat their Express Spaghetti, their T-bone steak,
Handling their steel and crockery with no clatter,
Laugh punily, rise, go firmly out of the door.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“My course is a firm assertion and maintenance of the rights of the colored people of the South according to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, coupled with a readiness to recognize all Southern people, without regard to past political conduct, who will now go with me heartily and in good faith in support of these principles.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Child with continuing cling issued his No in final fire,
Kissed back the colored maid,
Not wise enough to freeze or be afraid.
Conscious of kindness, easy creature bond.
Love had been handy and rapid to respond.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)