Continental Africans have never had a problem with African Americans however with the latest discourse online, I think they are beginning to wonder if it’s a good idea to welcome Black Americans with open arms. I am beginning to see it. I for one advocated for African governments welcoming back our lost people. I was actually going to lobby my own. I now have serious doubts.

Oh Damn. You know the history of 'scramble of Africa ' than most Africans and African intellectuals.
Can I asked you a  question. Have you studied African history?

But the bottom line is there are differences. I don't think we can get around it. I'm a 77 year old Black Woman.  I'm not comfortable being called an African American.  I truly prefer being referred to as a Black American. I don't want to...nor have I ever wanted to visit the African Continent. However, I wish them well, I would love for them to prosper and grow. We as Black Americans are loving delineating. It's a nice feeling.  Please don't try to do this unification stuff...it's falling on deaf ears.  At least for me it is.

Which country of Africa did you enjoy the most that give you the most joy,I am very grateful for your journey ❤❤😊

There were zero problems between Africans and American Americans when I went to college in Boston. We had different organizations on campus (African Students Association & Black Students Union) but some people on either side attended meetings of both. We hang out with each other a lot and some Africans & AAs even got married.

Because we were in a good educational setting, ignorance was low – we both knew and appreciated each others' histories etc. Ignorance (on both sides) is apparently the no. 1 driver of misunderstanding.

There are AAs from my college who have been living in Nairobi for years, and I know quite a number of Black guys running companies here (I met one just a couple weeks ago).

One AA I barely know and just met online (never met in person) came through for me in a big way a few years back.

What I cannot stand is "passport bros". I cannot fathom why they would put out the content that they do online. Nothing good can come from such, only future problems.

This unification stuff is not for me. But won't fault anyone that does.

Thanks!

As an African American elder born in Alabama during the civil rights movement, who grandmother was born in the same state in 1889, I strongly reject the labels of FBA/ADOS and the skin color game altogether because I know where these came from, it was our oppressor. They do that to keep us cut off from our roots, and if a tree is cut off from its roots , the branches cannot bear good fruit, weaken and die. A tree cut off from its roots cannot decipher reality well, it is prone to disease of false origination stories and self destruction, because it operates in a state of vulnerability.

I just ask Africans to understand we have a culture , but its not like all other cultures in the world.. But because we have survived all these hundreds of years under the most horrific conditions, its a testament to how great the African people are, we are you and you are us, even if many on both sides of this diaspora conflict never accept the unadulterated truth.

African Americans have developed what I call a survivalist culture — a culture born out of oppression and trauma, much like prison culture. Unlike traditional cultures around the world, which are rooted in nation-building and self-sufficiency, survivalist culture is limited to what the oppressor allows. We have been historically boxed into excelling in sports, music, and entertainment. While these achievements are extraordinary and have shaped global culture, they do not translate into the kind of structural power that sustains nations.

Traditional cultures build infrastructure, advance STEM fields, and secure ownership of industries critical to survival. By contrast, African Americans have largely been pushed into a consumer-only role, utilizing our near 2 trillion-dollar buying power to make other communities wealthy. Consider this: 98% of the products people use daily — cars, trucks, homes, appliances, electronics, airplanes — carry no African American brand names. We consume, but we rarely own where it matters.

Meanwhile, across Africa, despite being portrayed in Western media as poor or unstable, nations have indigenous industries — car companies, electronics firms, motorcycle manufacturers — and, most importantly, millions of acres of land ownership. Land is wealth, land is independence.In1910 African Americans owned 16 million acres of farmland in America by 1997 we had lost 90% because of land seizure, and discrimination.

If America were to cut us off tomorrow, our survivalist culture — built on throwing footballs, dribbling basketballs, and making music — would not sustain us. But if Africa were cut off from the world, it would endure because its traditional culture is rooted in land, ownership, and production. This is the fundamental difference: we dominate culture, but lack infrastructure. We shine in creativity, but remain dependent in economics. Until we shift from survivalist identity to nation-building, we will remain vulnerable.

We created a culture in America to survive 400 years of slavery and segregation — much like prisoners in a concentration camp develop ways of living to endure their condition. But should survival culture be mistaken for our true culture? Of course not. Many of us have forgotten, or even rejected, our original traditions from Africa, while clinging to the culture born out of trauma.

Look at the battle of the bands at HBCUs and compare them to tribal dances across Africa that have been performed for thousands of years — the similarities are striking. Our southern dishes, what we call “soul food,” are rooted in West African cuisine. Yet we’ve been conditioned to celebrate only the fragments of culture that survived oppression — music, sports, and entertainment — as if they alone define us.

COVID-19 revealed what truly matters in this world, and it wasn’t songs, movies, or football games. Until we see African American names on cars, planes, pharmaceuticals, appliances, computers, and energy companies, we are fooling ourselves about culture. Africans today have industries and brands carrying their names. Why don’t we? Because our survivalist culture is still dependent on the oppressor, lacking the autonomy to stand on its own. Traditional culture, by contrast, can thrive independently, without outside assistance.

During slavery, we were physically separated from our roots, punished for holding onto African names and languages. Today, the “whip” is social media, distorted movements, diaspora wars and international media that constantly portray Africa in a negative light, pushing us toward false identities. Ask the average person if they see African American brands in their daily life, and the answer often pivots back to football or movies. We’ve accepted that industry and innovation belong to others, just as we’ve accepted a white European image of Jesus.

We boast that the world mimics Black American culture, but in truth, we should be reconnecting to traditional world cultures. Meanwhile, the Black American family erodes — marriage rates have plummeted from 60% in the 1950s to 27% today. We sit at the bottom of every positive statistic and the top of every negative one. As we drift further from our traditional culture, the one sustained for thousands of generations before slavery, we risk becoming like Native Americans on reservations: high poverty, low political power, and fragmented communities.

Africa, despite its challenges, is becoming stronger, more modern, and more united — because it still draws from traditional culture. If we continue to rely only on survival culture, we remain trapped in the same status as slavery, even without physical chains.

(20) Malcom X Speech March 29, 1964
“We are African and we happened to be in America. We’re not Americans. WE are people who were formerly Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America. Our forefathers weren’t the Pilgrims. We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock the rock was landed on us. We were brought here against our will. We were not brought here to be made citizens. We were not brought here to enjoy the constitutional gifts the speak so beautiful about today. Because we weren't brought here to be made citizens today. Now that we’ve been awakened to some degree and we begin to ask for those things they say are supposedly for Americans they look upon us with hostility and unfriendliness." (Malcom X, March 29, 1964)

(16) Malcom X on Black Americans Despising Africa and denying African identity:
“They had to read the history of slavery to see how the white man skillfully managed to make us hate ourselves. He didn't do it by telling us to hate ourselves; he did it by making us hate the land we came from. When you hate Africa, you hate your roots. You can't hate the roots of a tree without ending up hating the tree itself. You can't hate your origin without ending up hating yourself. You can't hate the land, your motherland, the place that you came from, and we can't hate Africa without ending up hating ourselves. The Black man in the Western Hemisphere—North America, Central America, South America, and in the Caribbean—is the best example of how one can be made, skillfully, to hate himself that you can find anywhere on this earth. ...You cannot have a positive attitude toward yourself and a negative attitude toward Africa at the same time. To the same degree that your attitude becomes positive and your understanding of Africa becomes positive, your attitude and understanding of yourself will become positive. This is what the white man knows. So they very skillfully made you and me hate our African identity, our African characteristics.” (Malcom X, December 24, 1964)

(13) MLK said our dignity came from African identity:
" The Negro in the United States turn his eyes and mind to Africa. He noticed the magnificent drama of independence taking place on the stage of African history. Noticing the development, noticing what was happening, noticing what was being done by his black brothers and sisters in Africa, gave him a new sense of dignity in the United States and a new sense of self respect, the Negro came to feel he was somebody. His religion revealed to him that God loves all of his children, and that all men are made in his image, the basic thing about a man was not his specificity but his fundamentals, not the texture of his hair, not the color of his skin, but his eternal dignity and worth. So, the Negro in America can now cry out with an eloquent voice fleece of locks and black complexion , cannot forfeit nature’s claim, skin may differ but affection dwells in black and white the same. Where I so tall to reach the pole or grasp the ocean at a span. I must be measured by my soul , the mind is the standard of the man. With this new sense of dignity and new sense of self respect. A new Negro came into being, with a new determination to suffer and struggle , to sacrifice and even to die if necessary in order to be free, this reveals we have come a long long way since 1619. “ (Martin Luther King Jr, December 7, 1964)speech given in London England before he received the Nobel peace prize..

They tried to erase every connection between Black Americans and Africa, but they couldn’t erase this — because some receipts left by our ancestors can never be deleted.

What do AME (African Methodist Episcopal), AME Zion, and FABC (First African Baptist Church) really mean?

These names represent Black-led Christian denominations formed as powerful responses to racism, segregation, and exclusion from white churches.

Examples:

AME (African Methodist Episcopal Church) – Founded in 1816 by Richard Allen in Philadelphia after Black worshippers were forced out of white Methodist churches. AME emphasized racial justice, education, and spiritual independence.

AME Zion (African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church) – Founded in New York around 1796 for similar reasons. It played a key role in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.

FABC (First African Baptist Church) – One of the oldest Black congregations in America, established in Savannah, Georgia in 1773. This church symbolizes the deep-rooted religious and cultural independence of Black communities, even during slavery. This church is still open for service, and the church still has African symbols on the floor (Bakong cosmograms), put there by enslaved Africans.

In short:

Black churches don’t say “Black” because “African” already says it — powerfully and intentionally.

AME churches exist in nearly every Black American community across this country. We were African in 1773, and today we carry that identity proudly alongside American citizenship granted by the 14th Amendment in 1868. Thousands of these churches have survived slavery, Jim Crow, and now thrive in Africa, the Caribbean, and wherever Black people live.

You have hundreds of thousands FBA/ADOS members going to these same churches across America and saying they have no connections to Africa, even when some FBA/ADOS members have been members of these churches for generations. I guess they forgot what the A stands for in AME!

Denominations like AME and FABC are among the oldest Black institutions in America—older than Black colleges, fraternities, or businesses.

They reflect our true roots: a fusion of African identity, resistance to oppression, and spiritual self-determination that continues to inspire and empower generations.

Overlooked Truths in African American History: A Timeline of Erased Identity
Too often, history is rewritten to suit power structures. African American history is one of the most distorted narratives in the world. Here's a breakdown of overlooked facts that challenge the mainstream version of events—and reveal the deeper truth about African identity in America.

1. The Real First Africans in America (1526)
Before Jamestown. Before 1619.
The Spanish brought enslaved Africans to what is now South Carolina/Georgia in 1526, aiming to build a colony. These Africans resisted, rebelled, and reportedly joined local Native communities—over 90 years before Jamestown was even founded.

2. The 1619 Narrative: Misrepresented Beginnings
In 1619, about 20 Angolans were brought to Point Comfort, Virginia.
Many recognize this as the “beginning” of African American history—but it’s not the beginning. It marks a documented arrival, but Africans had been on the continent long before. Their children were the first Africans born on American soil—not “African Americans.”

3. Race Wasn’t Always About Skin
In early colonial society, race wasn’t a defining identity. People were known by religion, class, origin, or status—not appearance. Skin color only became a social marker in the late 1600s, after rebellions like Bacon’s Rebellion united poor Europeans  and African slaves against the elite. Racial division was created deliberately to maintain control.

4. No Birthright Citizenship Until 1866
Black people, whether free or enslaved, were not American citizens until April 9, 1866, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 reinforced by the 14th Amendment July 9 1868
Before that, they were Africans in America—not African Americans. They had no legal status as citizens in the country where they lived, worked, and died.

5. The Free African Society Knew Who They Were
In 1787, Richard Allen ( born in slavery,  Philadelphia, PA February 14, 1760)  and Absalom Jones ( born in slavery,  Sussex County, Delaware November 6, 1746) founded the Free African Society in Philadelphia.
They referred to themselves as “Africans,” “the African race,” or “descendants of Africans.”
Modern versions of these historic documents have been edited to say “African American” instead—erasing original identity in favor of modern terminology.

6. No American Citizen Was Ever a Slave
Slavery ended before any African in America became a citizen.
Let that sink in. There were no enslaved American citizens, only enslaved Africans in America. Citizenship came after emancipation.

⚔ 7. Africans Fought in the Civil War, Not African Americans
Those who fought in the Union Army were still legally Africans, not African Americans. They weren’t citizens. Yet they fought for freedom, justice, and rights in a nation that had yet to recognize them.

8. Slavery Didn’t Fully End Until August 1866
The 13th Amendment ended slavery in 1865—but not for all.
Thousands of Africans held in bondage by Native American tribes (such as the Cherokee and Creek) weren’t freed until August 1866, through treaties between the U.S. government and those tribes.

9. African Identity Erased, but Still Denied
"African American" as a legal term has only existed for 160 years.
Yet many today are disconnected from their African roots—partly because white supremacy worked to erase those connections, rewriting history, language, and even terminology.
Many seek reparations (rightfully) for slavery—but without acknowledging their direct African ancestry, which was systematically severed. The oldest black institution in America “ The Preamble to the Free African Society 1787 (Philadelphia, PA) refereed to themselves as the African Race,  The US Supreme Court Dred Scott Ruling 1857 refereed to black people as the African Race. The 1856 Chickasaw Constitution refereed to black people as African blood. The Afro-American label was popularized by Malcom X in 1964, when he created " The Organization of Afro-American Unity" it was different than the term African American popularized by Jesse Jackson in the 1980s, because Malcom's label covered all black people in North and South American Continent.

Historical Crime: Rewriting the Past
We now live in a world where Africans before 1866 are falsely labeled “African Americans.”
Older documents are edited. Textbooks misrepresent. Truth is buried. This isn’t just academic—it’s a historical crime of the highest proportion.

Final Thought
History must be reclaimed, not rewritten. If we continue to ignore these truths, we perpetuate the very systems that sought to erase African identity in the first place. Recognizing who we were is the first step in honoring who we are. Some claim we are a different people than Africans because of the long separation, but the Gullah Geechee of the Carolinas prove that to be false.

“To Bloom Where We Belong”
A Poetic Essay on Memory, Movement, and the Search for Home

We are told to plant our roots here.
In a land where the trees still whisper slave names,
and the rivers remember the weight of chained bodies.
We are told to call it home.
But how do you settle your soul
in a place where your grandmother's tears are mixed with the mortar,
and your great-grandfather’s blood stains the brick?
👉🏿We built this country — yes.
But not like a man builds his house.
We built it like oxen, like tools, like ghosts —
whipped into walls, buried beneath highways,
remembered only when convenient.
They say we should be proud of what we made.
But we didn’t make it —
we were forced to birth it, while mourning our own stolen beginning.

They ask:
"Why not attach your roots here?
Why not stay and fight and bloom in the soil you bled for?"
But I ask:
Can you plant seeds in a graveyard
and expect fruit that doesn’t taste like grief?
Our story didn’t start in chains.
We came from lands where drums spoke like prophets
and gold grew from rivers like reeds.
From kingdoms with names they never taught us —
Ashanti, Mali, Kemet —
civilizations where we were not "minorities"
but kings and midwives and scientists and sons of the sun.
🙏🏿God did not place us in the hulls of ships.
Men did that.
Sin did that.
Greed did that.
And yet, we ask God to turn this into Eden?

I think of Moses,
and I wonder why we don’t.
He didn’t lead his people deeper into Pharaoh’s palace.
He led them out.
Across the waters.
Toward the promise.
Even when the wilderness looked like death,
it was holier than comfort in captivity.

We keep praying for peace in a place built on broken treaties,
built by broken backs,
still breaking.
We keep asking the brothel to become a sanctuary.
But what if the miracle isn’t reform —
what if it’s return?
Return not as escape,
but as alignment —
with memory, with meaning, with the land that first knew our names.
🌍Africa is not a myth.
It is not a punishment.
It is not just history.
It is home.
Not just for bones — but for breath.
For rebuilding.
For rebirth.

🌧Maybe the storms we keep feeling — in our justice, in our cities, in our schools —
are the same winds that rocked Jonah’s ship.
And maybe we are Jonah,
sailing west when God said go east.
Maybe the whale is waiting.

Let us be honest:
America is not lost.
It was never ours to lose.
It was never meant to love us back.
So what if the most radical thing we can do
is stop asking to be accepted in the house we were enslaved in
and start dreaming again —
of home.
Of a land not cursed by memory,
but blessed by origin.💪🏿

"As an African American,  When you step foot on the African Continent...you definitely feel a soul level connection"...Amen!!!


I am OmuHerero old/young man...born in Apartheid -European Concentration Camp...and my parents and grand-parents were also born in German-European Concentration Camp  which culminated in the first genocide of the 20th century on the African Continent or perhaps in the world.

Guess what? When I first set foot, for the first time, in Baltimore, Maryland in the greater D.C./ Baltimore .Metropolitan area, and eventually at Morgan State University  - I, just like Ms. Wade, I felt the connection with my African American folks to the bone...it was natural,  instinctive,  non pretentious,  authentic period. So much so that I immediately dive deep into the historical underpinnings of the journey African Americans traversed throughout the centuries  to the present.  I am glad to pronounce that NO uncle Tom Clarence Thomas,  Ben Carson, Tariq ...whatever...the sambo/koon...or Mangalizo Buthelezi,  the new slave in South Africa Zuma...the Afrophobia evil, and devil Incarnate will convince me otherwise.

In the time honored pronouncements of the Black Panthers of yester years..."I am Black and Proud" ...on the mother continent,  in North America...or elsewhere period...and "the revolution shall not be televised "...Gill- Scott Heron...need I say more?

THANK YOU...sister Wade from Ohio...may the indomitable spirits of our common ancestors guide your beautiful work.

Geronimo The GREAT Apache Worrior in Babylon...

My sister please look up on YouTube an open letter from an African to African Americans....it's deep

Diaspora Wars Are Exhausting to Watch and Hear About. I've Since Separated Myself from Any Channel or Any Person, Groups, Who Are Stirring That Melting Pot. Whether We Like It Or Not, Afrikan People, Wherever We Reside Need Each Other Because We Share Common Enemies and Similar Struggles. The Same Oppressors Stomping On Me Might Have A Different Size Shoe Than The One Stomping On You; Nevertheless, BOOTS Are Still Stomping On Us. We MUST Work Together. Pan-Africanism Isn't Dead. Most Afrikan Nations Unfortunately Don't Want to Work Together In That Framework or Mindset. For Me, AFRIKANS Must UNITE.

Where did we get the idea that they don't like us, We got it from Africans 😂😂😂

Amen my sister, there has absolutely has been some issues to have a conversation about across all diaspora regarding our few differences in perspective, which is happening now and we need to emerge from that with the answer Solutions and commitment to Unity

Pan Africanism is hopeless romanticism that will continue staying in books and classic movies, we Africans don't have the need for collective unification since before colonialism we had our own tribal structures. Trying to unite with people who don't know each other don't have the same mindset, access, education, language, culture, norms, customs and resources is a waste of time. It's like combining all the elements on the periodic table. The reaction will be exothermic. Sooner or later, one will be the predator and the other the prey. Here in Africa that's the law of the jungle that applies.