The Proclamation

We are Foundational Black Americans - the proud descendants of the Black men and women who endured and survived one of the greatest atrocities in human history: American slavery. These resilient ancestors built the United States from the ground up, laying the foundation for the nation's economic, political, and cultural development.

But our history did not begin in 1619. 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 South Carolina and Georgia. These enslaved people courageously revolted against their captors, collapsing the Spanish settlement. The Spaniards retreated to the Caribbean, leaving behind the liberated Black people, who integrated with local Native American societies. This was the first act of Black resistance on American soil - and it happened almost 100 years before 1619.

And here is the deeper truth that is rarely told: many of our people were already here before the first ship arrived carrying stolen human beings from Alkebulan - the original name for the continent now called Africa. We have been on this land for many centuries. We knew this soil. We worked this earth. They needed us for farming - because we already understood the land.

We did not just come here on ships. We were already here. As Malcolm X declared:

“We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us.”

- Malcolm X

We use the term FBA not to divide, but to define. For too long, our unique identity has been blurred, our specific history diluted, our particular contributions uncredited. We are not simply “Black” in a generic sense - we are a distinct ethnic group forged through a process called ethnogenesis.

Important: 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.

Our Journey Through History

Many of our ancestors were already on this land - melanated people who had been here for centuries, who knew this earth and how to cultivate it. Others were trafficked from Alkebulan across the Atlantic in the Middle Passage - a journey of unimaginable horror that claimed millions of lives. All were then traffickedwithin America through the domestic slave trade, torn from families and sold like property from state to state.

After emancipation, we were promised 40 acres and a mule - a promise immediately broken. Instead, we faced Jim Crow, Black Codes, convict leasing, lynching, redlining, and the systematic destruction of our thriving communities. Tulsa’s Black Wall Street was burned to the ground. Rosewood was annihilated. The Black residents of Oscarville, Georgia were terrorized and driven from their land - land now submerged beneath Lake Lanier.

And yet, like diamonds formed under immense pressure, we emerged brilliant, resilient, and unbroken. Through all we’ve endured, we still stand.

Opening Doors for All

The Civil Rights Movement - led by Foundational Black Americans - did not only advance our own rights. Our fight for equality exposed the hypocrisy of America’s discriminatory systems and led directly to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished racist quotas and opened America’s doors to immigrants from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and beyond.

We acknowledge and honor the non-FBA allies - of all backgrounds - who have stood for justice alongside us. And we recognize that our struggle created pathways for millions who came after us. This is not a grievance - it is a testament to the power and reach of the FBA legacy.

What Is Still Owed

For 250 years, the unpaid labor of our ancestors built the wealth of this nation. For another century after emancipation, discriminatory practices continued to prevent our families from accumulating wealth. Reparations are not charity - they are a still-owed inheritance, a debt that this nation has yet to pay.

We speak of reparations not with bitterness but with clarity. What was taken must be restored. What was broken must be repaired. This is not about the past alone - it is about building a future where the foundation that FBA built is finally honored.