The phrase Legacy Afro-North American describes populations and individuals who are known or understood to be descendant of Africans who were brought to the United States via the Middle Passage, i.e. who are a legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. "Legacy African American" could also be used. These phrases exclude Africans, no matter their geographical origin in Africa, who came by other means. This term would have parallels for South America and the Carribbean where there are also legacy populations (Legacy Afro-South Americans or Legacy Afro-Latinos for example).

The legacy status is deemed to have significance because of various known microevolutionary factors and likely epigenetic effects on these populations, which are socially defined differently in each country. (Remote African ancestry is not a factor in social definitions in all of the societies.)

The members of the legacy populations should not be homogenized with recent immigrants, something very important in health studies, irrespective of the definitions of census or bureacratic "race" notions. Another accurate designation for these groups/populations in the new world would include Middle Passage (or middle passage) Americans, with or without other descriptors (eg Middle Passage North Americans or Middle Passage Americans), because "Middle Passage" is restricted to those who came in this manner from tropical Africa. Other African peoples from Algeria to Zimbabwe have come to the US since the end of the great tragedy of the slave trade. They should be designated by their nationality regardless of phenotype and its assumed indicator or origin in the received racial schema and its erroneous basis (e.g.s. Algerian American). Nomenclature should accurately reflect a population or individual if the goal is to embed useful information in the terminology.