The Full Truth
Our History
From the shores of Alkebulan to the heart of America - the story of Foundational Black Americans is one of endurance, resistance, and unbreakable strength.
What Does FBA Mean?
It is important to clarify that Foundational Black Americans (FBA) is not a group or an organization, and there is no designated leader of FBA. FBA is a lineage-based designation that specifically refers to the over 43 million Black Americans who are direct descendants of the Freedmen - the formerly enslaved Black people who were emancipated in the United States. This lineage represents a unique and unbroken connection to the foundational builders of this nation.
We honor and celebrate the rich history, cultural contributions, and unyielding strength of Foundational Black Americans. This recognition is not only a tribute to our ancestors but also a commitment to preserving and advancing the legacy they established.
1526: Where Our American Story Begins
The history of Foundational Black Americans did not begin in 1619 with the arrival of enslaved Black people in Virginia. It began nearly a century earlier.
In 1526, Spanish colonizer Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon brought the first documented enslaved Black people to the shores of what is now the South Carolina and Georgia coastline. Shortly after their arrival, these enslaved Black people courageously revolted against their captors, leading to the collapse of the Spanish settlement. The surviving Spaniards retreated to the Caribbean, leaving behind the liberated Black people.
These freed Black people integrated with local Native American societies, marking a pivotal and often overlooked chapter in the lineage and cultural evolution of Foundational Black Americans.
Since that defining moment in 1526, the culture and identity of Foundational Black Americans have been deeply rooted in building, resilience, resistance, and an unwavering fight for justice. This spirit of perseverance and ingenuity has shaped every aspect of American society - from infrastructure and agriculture to music, art, and political activism. FBA are an exceptional people whose enduring legacy continues to inspire generations.
From Alkebulan: The Middle Passage
Alkebulan - meaning “Mother of Mankind” or “Garden of Eden” - is the oldest known indigenous name for the African continent. From this cradle of civilization, millions of our ancestors were forcibly taken in what became the largest forced migration in human history.
The Middle Passage - the horrific sea journey across the Atlantic - saw our people packed into the dark, unsanitary holds of slave ships. The conditions were beyond brutal: extreme overcrowding, rampant disease, and starvation claimed an estimated two million lives during the crossing. Those who survived faced a second trafficking - within America itself, as families were torn apart and sold across state lines.
Jim Crow & Systematic Oppression
After the nominal end of slavery, the promise of freedom was immediately undermined. Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in every aspect of life - schools, hospitals, transportation, restaurants, water fountains, and voting booths. Black Codes and convict leasing created a system of neo-slavery. Lynching was used as a tool of terror to maintain white supremacy.
These were not isolated acts of prejudice - they were a coordinated, institutional system designed to keep Foundational Black Americans in a state of subjugation, economically exploited and politically powerless, for nearly a century after emancipation.
Redlining: The Theft of Wealth
Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government institutionalized housing discrimination through the practice of redlining. Maps were drawn marking Black neighborhoods as “hazardous” - making it nearly impossible for Black families to obtain mortgages, insurance, or business loans. This systematic exclusion from homeownership - the primary vehicle for American wealth-building - created a racial wealth gap that persists to this day.
Redlining didn’t just deny individual families homes - it drained entire communities of investment, infrastructure, and opportunity, ensuring that the neighborhoods where Black people were forced to live would be underserved for generations.
Tulsa Race Massacre (1921)
The Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma was known as “Black Wall Street” - one of the most prosperous Black communities in America, with thriving businesses, schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions. On May 31–2 June 1, 1921, a white mob descended on Greenwood, burning 35 square blocks to the ground.
An estimated 300 Black residents were killed, over 800 were injured, and more than 10,000 were left homeless. The National Guard was called in - not to protect the Black community, but to arrest Black residents. For decades, this massacre was covered up and erased from history books. The wealth that was destroyed has never been restored.
The Rosewood Massacre (1923)
In January 1923, the predominantly Black town of Rosewood, Florida was attacked by a white mob based on a false accusation. Over the course of several days, the mob burned buildings, hunted residents, and murdered an unknown number of Black people. Survivors were forced to flee into the surrounding swamps.
Rosewood was completely destroyed. The survivors never returned, and the town was wiped from the map. It wasn’t until 1994 - over 70 years later - that the state of Florida passed a claims bill providing modest compensation to survivors. Rosewood stands as a stark reminder that Black prosperity was met with white violence.
Oscarville, Georgia (1912)
In 1912, after a white woman was found murdered in Forsyth County, Georgia, a campaign of racial terror was unleashed against the Black community. Night riders burned homes and churches. Black families were given days to leave or face death. Nearly 1,100 Black residents - the entire Black population - were driven out.
Those who fled were forced to abandon or sell their land for a fraction of its value. The community of Oscarville was erased. Decades later, the stolen land was submerged beneath the waters of Lake Lanier - built by the federal government in the 1950s. Today, Lake Lanier is one of Georgia’s most popular recreation spots, built on land taken from Black families through terror.
Pressure Makes Diamonds
Every act of destruction, every stolen community, every broken promise was pressure. And through that pressure, Foundational Black Americans emerged as diamonds - brilliant, resilient, and unbreakable. Our history is not a story of victimhood. It is a story of extraordinary transformation.
Through all we've endured, we still stand.
Understanding FBA Lineage
The framework below draws on principles developed and popularized by Tariq Nasheed, whose work has been instrumental in defining and advancing the FBA designation. Content has been adapted and rewritten in our own words to educate and inform.
Who Qualifies as FBA
The Foundational Black American designation is rooted in lineage, not simply skin color or general African heritage. To be considered FBA, an individual must be able to trace their ancestry directly to Black people who were enslaved within the borders of what is now the United States of America. This is a critical distinction - the designation does not extend to descendants of slavery in the Caribbean, South America, or other regions, as those populations have their own distinct histories and national identities.
A person qualifies as FBA if at least one of their parents is a descendant of the American Freedmen - the Black men and women who were emancipated from chattel slavery on American soil. The defining criterion is an unbroken ancestral chain linking back to that specific experience of bondage, survival, and nation-building within the United States.
It is also essential to understand that FBA is not a membership club or a political party. There are no dues, no sign-up sheets, and no elected officials. It is a heritage-based classification recognizing a people who share a common and deeply specific historical experience that shaped the very foundation of this country.
How to Trace Your Lineage
One of the most powerful steps any FBA can take is to research and document their family history. Two federal census records are especially valuable in establishing your connection to the Freedmen:
The 1870 Census
The 1870 Census holds special significance because it was the first federal count conducted after emancipation. For the first time, formerly enslaved Black Americans were recorded by their own chosen names rather than as unnamed property on a slaveholder's schedule. If you can locate your ancestors in this census, it provides strong evidence of Freedmen lineage and a direct connection to the people who survived American slavery.
The 1900 Census
The 1900 Census is another critical resource because it included a column recording each person's year of immigration to the United States. For Black individuals listed in this census with no year of immigration recorded, this serves as further documentation that they and their families had been in the country since before voluntary immigration - meaning their presence traces back to the era of enslavement. This is a powerful genealogical tool for confirming FBA heritage.
Resources like the National Archives, FamilySearch.org, and Ancestry.com offer free or low-cost access to these historical census records.
The Half-FBA Designation
A person with one FBA parent and one non-FBA parent is still recognized under the FBA umbrella. This is consistent with the lineage principle: if one side of your family tree traces directly to the American Freedmen, that ancestral connection remains valid and meaningful.
However, there is an important distinction regarding representation and advocacy. When one parent is from a post-1970 immigrant background, the individual may carry cultural ties, loyalties, or perspectives shaped by that immigrant heritage. This does not diminish their identity, but it does raise questions about whether they are best positioned to speak on behalf of the broader FBA collective - a group whose interests are shaped by a singular and centuries-long experience on American soil.
The principle is straightforward: those who represent the interests of Foundational Black Americans should ideally have both feet firmly planted in the FBA experience, without competing allegiances to other national or ethnic communities that may have different historical relationships with America.
The Immigration Act of 1965 and What Changed
The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 (the Immigration and Nationality Act) abolished the old national-origins quota system and opened the door for large-scale immigration from Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and Latin America. It is crucial to recognize that FBA fought for this legislation as part of the broader civil rights movement. The same freedom struggle that produced the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act also created the political conditions for immigration reform.
Prior to this act, Black immigrants who came to the United States were relatively few in number and often aligned closely with the FBA community. Figures like Marcus Garvey (who arrived in 1916 from Jamaica) and Malcolm X's mother (Louise Little, born in Grenada) came during an era when Black immigrants recognized they were entering a society shaped by FBA struggle. They joined and supported that struggle rather than positioning themselves as separate from it.
The dynamic shifted significantly after 1970. Two devastating government programs had weakened the FBA community from within:
COINTELPRO
The FBI's Counter Intelligence Program systematically targeted, infiltrated, and dismantled FBA leadership and organizations throughout the 1960s. Leaders were surveilled, imprisoned, assassinated, or forced into exile. The program deliberately destroyed the infrastructure of Black political power that had taken generations to build.
Benign Neglect
Coined in a 1970 memo by Daniel Patrick Moynihan to President Nixon, this policy recommended that "the issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect." In practice, it meant the federal government would deliberately step back from addressing racial inequality - right at the moment when newly arriving immigrants began entering communities that FBA had built and bled for.
The combined effect was devastating: FBA communities were left leaderless and under-resourced at the precise moment when new populations were arriving to compete for the opportunities, resources, and political positions that FBA sacrifice had created.
Why FBA Representation Matters
History provides sobering lessons about what happens when a community allows individuals with divided loyalties to serve as its representatives and decision-makers. The concept of dual allegiance - where a person maintains ties and obligations to two different groups with potentially conflicting interests - has led to the exploitation and downfall of communities throughout recorded history.
The Portuguese Lancados
In West Africa during the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese traders known as lancados married into local African communities, learned the languages, and gained positions of trust and influence. Yet their ultimate allegiance remained with Portuguese commercial interests. They used their insider status to facilitate the slave trade, identify valuable captives, and undermine African sovereignty - all while being embraced as members of the very communities they were helping to destroy.
Colonial Marriages with Native Americans
European colonizers deliberately married into Native American nations to gain access to land, resources, and political influence. These unions placed individuals with inherent conflicts of interest into positions of power within indigenous communities. Over time, the colonizers' relatives and mixed-heritage descendants often facilitated land transfers, treaty negotiations that favored European interests, and policies that eroded tribal sovereignty - sometimes unknowingly, sometimes by design.
These historical precedents underscore a vital principle: those who speak for a people must be fully of that people. The FBA community, with its specific history, specific grievances, and specific claims on American society, deserves advocates and representatives whose loyalties are undivided and whose understanding of the FBA experience is not secondhand.
This is not about hostility toward any group. It is about the basic survival wisdom that every successful community throughout history has practiced: ensuring that those entrusted with collective power share the collective's singular interests and have no reason - conscious or otherwise - to compromise on the community's behalf.
Attribution
The FBA lineage framework, qualification criteria, and historical analysis presented above are informed by the research and advocacy of Tariq Nasheed - filmmaker, author, and one of the foremost voices in advancing the Foundational Black American designation and its importance. Content has been adapted and expressed in original language for educational purposes.
Learn more through Tariq Nasheed's documentaries, books, and media at tariqnasheed.com