Delineation means drawing the line.
The FBA delineation movement asks for Foundational Black Americans to be recognized as our own people, apart from everyone lumped in under “African American.”
Its petition names Freedmen, Gullah Geechee, Cherokee Freedmen, Soulaan, Creole and “other native lineages.”
Here’s what WW9 adds: they already delineated us.
They drew the line hundreds of years ago, on paper.
They just drew it in the wrong place: out of Indian, and into Negro.
The receipts
- 1691, Virginia. The law wrote “white” as a wall, and put negroe, mulatto and Indian together on the other side of it. See the case
- 1757, Brazil. The king of Portugal had to pass a law ordering his officials to stop calling the Indians Negros. You only ban a word everybody is using. See the case
- 1924, Virginia. Indian families were changed to colored on their birth and death papers, by order of one official. The people didn’t change. The paper did. See the case
- The Dawes Rolls. The government sorted the nations’ own people onto a separate Freedmen roll and wrote that they had no Indian blood, by rule, not by checking. See the case
- 1947, Washington. The President’s own civil rights committee wrote that dark-skinned visitors from overseas were turned away until “it is established that they are not Americans,” and then “they are accommodated.” The label was for the people of this land. See the door
- 1930, the U.S. census. Part Indian and part Negro was to be listed as Negro “unless the Indian blood predominated.” Part Indian and part white stayed Indian. See the case
Every one of those is a delineation. Every one moved our families the same direction: away from the land.
Delineation done right
If we’re drawing the line, draw it where the paper shows it was before they moved it.
Not a line that starts at the boat. A line that starts at the land.
Foundational, and American Indian. One people.
Want to find your own family’s line? How to dig walks you through it, free.
Questions people ask
What is FBA delineation?
A push to have Foundational Black Americans recognized as a distinct people, separate from the broad “African American” label.
Were Black Americans ever delineated before?
Yes, on paper: by Virginia law in 1691, by Portugal’s crown in 1757, by Virginia’s registrar in 1924, by the Dawes Rolls and by the census rules. Each one moved Indian families into Negro.
Are FBA American Indian?
Our lens: one people. The receipts above show the paper moved Indian families into Negro. Dig your own line and see.
Renamed Black. Born Aboriginal.
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