In 1565, the Spanish brought enslaved Africans to what is now Florida.
In 1619, the English brought enslaved Africans to Virginia.
They were victims of human trafficking.
And, from them and more that followed, surviving the horrors of the Middle Passage, a new people were bred in the Americas.
Mixed children of the enslaved, the native, and the free.
Today, they are called African Americans.
Even while enslaved, they participated and contributed to EVERY significant event in what became the United States of America.
The facts are that the very economy of the fledgling new country was built on the backs of these enslaved people.
Their hands literally built our esteemed buildings in the nation’s capital.
For example, the enslaved American, Philip Reid, helped construct the Statue of Freedom atop our U.S. Capitol today.
https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/statue-freedom/philip-reid
We were at the Boston Tea Party, and we are fighting now for our country in the 21st century.
African American inventors created and changed their country and the world with inventions sometimes born from necessity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_inventors_and_scientists
Our blood, sweat, and tears are in the roots of America.
We were bred here. We were born here. We belong here.
Along with our Native American brethren, the African American relationship with America is unique.
There is no way for others to understand it or how we “be” in that relationship.
We only ask that you acknowledge that uniqueness.
FREEDOM has a different context for us.
Because our journey to acquire it was like no other.
We rise in a different way when it is threatened.
But we rise … as Americans.
When the complete history of the journeys of ALL American people is embraced as ONE history, then we will have taken the first healing step in our land of the free and home of the brave.
