Africans in America

The idea of "America" is more than the United States of America nation state but the predominant narrative is based on that concept. We think of the image of Uncle Sam when we say America if you live in the U.S. and probably other places in the world. But if we agree with the nursery school rhyme, "1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue," then practically, if not actually, from the beginning there has been a role and relationship between Africans and Europeans there.

Pedro Alonso Niño was a pilot of the Santa Maria in the 1492 expedition. In the early 1500s Africans were transported to Europe and the "New World" (North, Central, South America and Caribbean). 1619 is cited as the date for the first Africans brought to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Thus Virginia and its capitalist inspired search for profits became the crucible that created both the notion of democracy and human rights which led to the rebellion against the idea of the right of divine kingship and the dehumanization of the African personality in the European imagination and the debasement of their humanity that removed them from under the cover of God as human beings and designated them as chattel or property.

Our friend and philosopher, Dr. Maulana Karenga, stated "there is no separate freedom and dignity for African people." But he is speaking from the actual, factual and manifest reality of the shared humanity of the human family. However, he is, as others were, speaking to a group that culturally justifies its injustices with rationalizations that assert and defend the dehumanization of the African personality in the European imagination. It is today and was in 1808 when with the legal establishment of the African Chattel Enslavement System was "tweaked" to make it illegal to bring enslaved Africans into the U.S. from Africa, it birthed a domestic market for breeding, birthing and bondage for Africans living in the United States.

With the revolutionary replay of the enslavers fighting for the right to continued their crime against humanity, just as the original 13 English Colonies did, the Northern and Southern states entered into a fratricidal battle that required the enlistment and engagement of Africans for a Union victory. But while the justification of the start of the battle was the same as in the 1770s, the outcome was this time, unlike in the 1770s, the enslavers lost. The increasing desperation of the Northern states led to concessions that resulted in the 13th amendment and the end of African chattel slavery. But the attitude that the Africans had no right of self-determination that must be respected by their European allies, or enslavers, resulted in the unilateral decision of 1868 the produced the 14th Amendment without the advice or consent of those who would be governed by it.

The denial, dismissal and denigration of the right to self and self-determination continues today as part of the vestiges of African chattel enslavement and the ongoing dehumanization of the African personality in the European imagination.