In the course of researching the history of segregation and desegregation in Fairfax County Public Schools, I encountered racially-charged language that would be considered either archaic and problematic by today's standards. In particular, in primary source documents from FCPS, the terms "colored" and "Negro" are most commonly used to describe students and schools.
When directly quoting and in some cases paraphrasing original sources from decades ago, I have retained the original terminology.
In my own composition, I have used both the terms "African-American" and "Black" interchangeably, but to use "Black" as the primary term. I have chosen to capitalize "Black" and not to capitalize "white". Understanding that these choices are part of a larger evolving discussion, I have leaned upon the choices and rationale of neighboring Arlington in their ProjectDAPS (Exploring the Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools) archive in their Note on Language. (Arlington Public Library, n.d.).