July 1 – 7
The 7 Days
Each day of Sacred Roots carries a specific focus and purpose, building toward a week of remembrance, truth, spiritual power, celebration, and renewal.
The Beauty of Our People
Every shade. Every texture. Every generation. This is what Foundational Black American celebration looks like - from our elders who carry the wisdom to our children who carry the future.
Our elders carry the light of generations - their wisdom guides us home.
Our children are the living promise - they carry the future in their hands.
Every Great Culture Honors Its Ancestors
Across the globe, cultures dedicate sacred time to remember, celebrate, and draw strength from those who came before them. Mexican Americans have Día de los Muertos. The Chinese have Qingming. The Japanese have Obon. The Koreans have Chuseok. Across West Africa, ancestral shrines are tended year-round. These are not quaint traditions - they are acts of cultural survival and spiritual power. It is time we do the same.
Día de los Muertos
Celebrated November 1-2, families build elaborate altars (ofrendas) adorned with marigolds, sugar skulls, photographs, and the favorite foods of their departed loved ones, welcoming their spirits back for a joyful reunion.
Qingming Festival
A 2,500-year-old tradition held each April where families visit ancestral graves to clean tombstones, present offerings of food and incense, and honor their lineage through acts of filial piety.
Obon Festival
A three-day summer festival welcoming ancestral spirits back to the earthly realm. Families hang lanterns to guide spirits home, perform the Bon Odori dance, and float paper lanterns down rivers to guide them back.
Chuseok & Jesa Ceremonies
Korean families perform Jesa ceremonies on death anniversaries, honoring ancestors up to four generations back with meticulously arranged food offerings, deep bows, and libations of rice wine.
Ancestral Shrines & Egungun
Communities maintain ancestral shrines with regular offerings of libations and food. The Yoruba Egungun festival in Nigeria features masked dancers embodying ancestral spirits who offer blessings and guidance to the living.
Famadihana
The "Turning of the Bones" ceremony where families exhume the remains of ancestors, rewrap them in fresh silk shrouds, dance with them, and share family news - a joyous celebration of the ongoing bond between living and dead.
Shraddha Ceremonies
Annual rituals performed on death anniversaries where specific foods like rice balls (pinda) are offered while Brahmin priests recite Vedic mantras, ensuring ancestors bestow blessings upon living descendants.
Samhain
The ancient Celtic festival (October 31-November 1) marks when the veil between worlds thins. Families leave food and drink outside for ancestral visitors and light bonfires to honor and guide the spirits of the departed.
Why This Matters for Foundational Black Americans
Identity & Psychological Grounding
Psychologists have found that connecting with one's ancestry reduces anxiety, improves emotional well-being, and creates a deeper sense of meaning. For a people whose names, languages, and family records were deliberately erased through slavery, reclaiming that ancestral connection is not just cultural - it is therapeutic. It reminds us that we are part of something far larger than ourselves.
Healing Generational Trauma
Ancestral veneration has been shown to facilitate emotional healing, especially for those carrying familial trauma. By acknowledging what our ancestors endured - the Middle Passage, chattel slavery, convict leasing, Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration - we do not just remember suffering. We honor their survival. We process inherited pain. And we transform it into strength for the next generation.
Cultural Survival & Resilience
Every culture that has maintained its identity across centuries has done so through intentional remembrance. Ancestor veneration builds community cohesion, reinforces shared values, and passes down wisdom. Without it, a people are vulnerable to cultural erasure and historical amnesia. FBA Lineage Week is our stake in the ground - our declaration that we remember, we honor, and we will not forget.
Establishing Our Own Tradition
Other groups do not ask permission to honor their ancestors. They simply do it - and have done it for centuries and millennia. Foundational Black Americans have endured more than almost any group on this continent, yet we are the only ones without a dedicated time of ancestral remembrance. FBA Lineage Week changes that. July 1-7 is ours. Seven days to remember where we came from, celebrate who we are, and build what comes next.
“If you don't know your past, you don't know your future.”
- Dr. John Henrik Clarke
July 1
Day 1: Day of Remembrance
Wearing All White - Honoring Our Ancestors
We open Sacred Roots: FBA Lineage Week dressed in all white - a sacred act of spiritual protection, purity of purpose, and divine connection. White is our armor against negative energy, a shield that has been honored across ancestral traditions. On this first day, we begin by calling out the names of our ancestors - speaking them aloud, thanking them for every sacrifice, every prayer, every act of endurance that brought us here. We continually ask them for divine guidance and protection throughout the day and throughout the week. We call back our energy, our power, and our divine inheritance.
Activities & Practices
Reflection
White is the color of divine protection, of spiritual armor, of new beginnings. Today we step into Sacred Roots cloaked in the light of our ancestors. We call their names. We thank them. We ask for their guidance. Their blood runs through our veins, their dreams live on in our breath. We stand protected, powerful, and whole.
July 2
Day 2: Day of Truth
Confronting Our History - NEVER AGAIN
Today we confront the full truth of our history - the trafficking from Alkebulan, the horrors of enslavement, the terrorism of Jim Crow, the theft of Oscarville, the destruction of Rosewood, the massacre at Tulsa. We face these truths not to dwell in pain but to understand the depth of what was survived. We look at our history with clear eyes and speak the truth with full voices - because a people who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.
NEVER AGAIN.
Just as the Jewish community declared "Never Again" after the Holocaust, we as Foundational Black Americans proclaim the same. Never again will our history be erased. Never again will our suffering be minimized. Never again will our contributions go uncredited. Never again will we be silent about what was done to us and what is still owed.
Activities & Practices
Reflection
Like diamonds forged under immense pressure, our people have been shaped by forces meant to crush us. The truth of our history is not a burden - it is the foundation of our power. We remember so that it never happens again. NEVER AGAIN.
July 3
Day 3: Day of Preparation
Cleansing & Setting Intentions
This day is one of spiritual preparation for the sacred centerpiece of our week. We cleanse our spaces, our bodies, and our minds. We set intentions for what we wish to call into our lives and our community. We prepare ourselves to stand tall on July 4th, honoring both the nation and the people who built it.
Activities & Practices
Reflection
Before we step into our power, we must prepare the vessel. Today we release what no longer serves us and make room for the blessings our ancestors fought to give us.
July 4
Day 4: Day of Sacred Power
We Built This - Celebrating Our Place in America
The centerpiece of FBA Lineage Week falls on the Fourth of July. Today we include ourselves in this celebration - because even though the majority of our ancestors were not yet free on this day in 1776, they were still profoundly significant in building America. The roads, the fields, the economy, the culture - Foundational Black Americans laid the very foundation this nation stands on. We celebrate the Fourth not in spite of our history, but because of our undeniable role in making America what it is.
Activities & Practices
Reflection
They may not have been free, but they were never insignificant. Every brick laid, every field harvested, every song sung - FBA hands built this nation. Today we celebrate with the full knowledge of who we are and what we have given.
July 5
Day 5: Day of Brilliance
FBA Inventions & Contributions
Today we celebrate the extraordinary brilliance of Foundational Black Americans. From the blood bank to the traffic light, from jazz to rock and roll, from the carbon filament to refrigerated transport - FBA genius has shaped America and the world. We also acknowledge how our civil rights fight opened doors for others through the Immigration Act of 1965.
Activities & Practices
Reflection
Our people did not just survive - we created, we innovated, we transformed the world. The very fabric of American life is woven with FBA brilliance. Today we stand in that legacy.
July 6
Day 6: Day of Building
Economic Empowerment & Reparations
This day is dedicated to our economic future. We discuss reparations - not as charity, but as a still-owed inheritance for centuries of unpaid labor and stolen wealth. We commit to building within our community: supporting FBA businesses, investing in our neighborhoods, and creating generational wealth.
Activities & Practices
Reflection
What was taken must be restored. Reparations are not about handouts - they are about righting the deepest economic wrong in this nation's history. We build, we invest, we reclaim.
July 7
Day 7: Day of Affirmation
Through All We've Endured, We Still Stand
The final day is a celebration of resilience, gratitude, and forward vision. We affirm who we are as Foundational Black Americans. We express gratitude for our ancestors, our community, and our future. We close with the declaration that through all we have endured, we still stand.
Activities & Practices
Reflection
This is not the end. This is a beginning - a renewal of purpose, a deepening of identity, a strengthening of bonds. We are Foundational Black Americans. Through all we have endured, we still stand. And we will continue to rise.
Through all we've endured,
we still stand.