They tried to erase us, yet the land remembers our name.
They changed our names, but not our roots.
The history of Black-Native peoples in North America has often been obscured, fragmented, or erased through the imposition of rigid racial categories. Colonial systems and later U.S. policies sought to separate Black and Indigenous peoples, denying the longstanding ties, shared communities, and overlapping histories that existed between them. It is impossible to define Black-Native identity as a single or monolithic experience; rather, it is diverse, reflecting a wide range of tribal affiliations, African lineages, and lived realities. Many have chosen to identify as “Afro-Indigenous,” “Black Native,” “Indigenous and Black,” or with specific tribal nations, thereby resisting the historical erasure that demanded individuals choose one identity over the other. By reclaiming both heritages, Black-Native communities challenge the narratives that sought to erase their presence as true natives of this land, asserting instead a history of survival, resilience, and cultural continuity that spans generations.
Black people are not only children of Africa, the cradle of civilization, but also the original people of the Americas, rooted here long before European colonization. Our dual heritage as African and Indigenous has been denied through erasure and forced reclassification, yet we remain. Oral traditions, cultural memory, and historical truth affirm that we are native and original to this hemisphere, bound to this land by ancestry, survival, and unbroken legacy.
Racist Reclassification
“Between 1912 and 1946, Plecker served as the Commonwealth’s Registrar of Vital Statistics. In this position, Plecker turned to old census records to rewrite history and prove that people claiming “Indian blood” were actually “Negroes.” Under Plecker’s reign, Virginia reclassified hundreds of Virginia Indians—going back to the 1850s—from “Indian” to “Negro.” (Craig & Smithers, 2024).
Craig, A., & Smithers, G. (2024, March 20). How Virginia Used Segregation Laws to Erase
Black Native history endures hardship and erasure.
Chattel Slavery
Racist theory of eugenics
Racist theory of eugenics
Chattel slavery treated human beings as property to be bought, sold, or inherited. Practiced in the American colonies and the U.S., it stripped people of rights and humanity, exploiting them for labor and enriching their owners (Wikipedia, 2025).
Racist theory of eugenics
Racist theory of eugenics
Racist theory of eugenics
Eugenics, coined by Francis Galton in 1883, falsely used science to label groups as “inferior,” linking race and intelligence to justify racism, sterilization, and white supremacy (Markel, 2018).
Walter Ashby Plecker
Racist theory of eugenics
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
From 1912 to 1946, Plecker reclassified Native Americans as “colored,” erasing their identity and enforcing white supremacy. He authored Virginia’s 1924 Racial Integrity Act, institutionalizing the one-drop rule—an act of “documentary genocide” that shaped systemic racism for generations (Crowder, 2022).
Crowder, K. (2022, December 1). Walter Plecker Paper Genocide [Video]. YouTube.
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
On March 20, 1924, Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, one of the harshest segregation laws in the nation, designed to preserve white “purity” and later copied throughout the Jim Crow South. Its roots stretched back to 1630, when Hugh Davis, a white man, was publicly whipped for “lying with a Negro”—an early sign of laws policing race and relationships. Though overturned in Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Act’s legacy and Plecker’s racial policies continue to shape inequities today (Craig & Smithers, 2024).
Craig, A., & Smithers, G. (2024, March 20). How Virginia Used Segregation Laws to Erase
Jim Crow laws
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
Jim Crow laws
Enacted across the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jim Crow laws enforced segregation and upheld white supremacy. Through voter suppression, violence, and exclusion, they stripped African Americans of rights and opportunity, a legacy of inequality that still endures today. (Wikipedia, 2025).
Wikipedia contributors. (2025b, September 26). Jim Crow laws. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Lynchings
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
Jim Crow laws
Lynchings were instruments of racial and economic domination, targeting Black landowners and communities to uphold white supremacy through terror. Public spectacles of torture carried out with impunity served to intimidate, dehumanize, and destroy as acts of genocide and economic oppression.
Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s fought to end segregation and racial discrimination, securing landmark legal and social changes. Led by groups and activists who risked and often lost their lives in pursuit of justice. Though formal discrimination was outlawed, the struggle for true equality continues, as the movement’s legacy remains a foundation of courage and change (Encyclopedia Britannica Editors).
Black Genocide
“Black genocide” describes the ongoing impact of systemic racism on African Americans, from lynchings and discrimination to mass incarceration and economic oppression. First formally documented in 1951, it frames structural racism as a human rights violation demanding condemnation, redress, and repair.
Wealth Gap
Race Massacres
Slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic attacks on Black wealth have created a persistent racial wealth gap. Dispossession, discrimination, and unequal policies continue to limit opportunities for homeownership, investment, and economic mobility, underscoring the urgent need for reforms to achieve racial equity.
Race Massacres
Systematic Racism
Race Massacres
Race massacres in U.S. history were deliberate acts of terror targeting Black communities, destroying homes, businesses, and livelihoods. False accusations, murder, arson, and intimidation drove families from land and jobs, reinforcing systemic barriers and suppressing Black economic success (BET, 2021).
Segregation
Systematic Racism
Systematic Racism
Historic and ongoing displacement, exclusion, and segregation have blocked people of color from homeownership and safe, affordable housing. Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation, often reinforced by religious teachings that justified white supremacy and Black subjugation (Quick & Kahlenberg, 2019).
Systematic Racism
Systematic Racism
Systematic Racism
Systemic racism, rooted in slavery and segregation, continues to limit Black Americans’ opportunities and reinforce inequality through implicit bias and societal structures. Despite these barriers, Black communities remain resilient and diverse, while White advantages persist (Banaji et al., 2021).
Targeted, hunted, criminalized, dismantled; yet we survive.
Legal Manipulation
Black landowners were often trapped by unfair loans and fraudulent contracts, with white-controlled courts seizing their property. Racial gaslighting, stereotyping, and manipulation silenced people of color, fostering doubt, isolation, and fear of speaking out (Treasury, 2025).
Racial Inequality in the United States. (n.d.). U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Police Brutality
Black victims of racial injustice and police brutality reflect a system rooted in slavery and white supremacy. True change requires dismantling oppressive systems, ending abusive policing, investing in communities, and confronting the historical roots of inequality (Trustees, 2025).
Housing Discrimination
Homeownership and affordable housing are key to wealth building, yet policies have largely favored white households. People of color have faced displacement, exclusion, and segregation, limiting access to homes, opportunities, and financial security.
Health care discrimination
Historical exploitation of Black bodies has fostered deep mistrust in healthcare, contributing to lower organ donation and persistent transplant disparities due to bias, unequal access, and systemic injustice (Kenen & Batchlor, 2022).
Kenen, J, & Batchlor, E. (2022, December 18). Racist Doctors and Organ Thieves: Why So Many
Employment Discrimination
Race-based hair discrimination still limits Black women’s employment, pay, and advancement. Natural hairstyles like locs, braids, and Afros are often penalized, while biased hiring systems and workplace inequities sustain wage gaps for Black workers (Wilson & Darity, 2022).
Voting Rights
Racist voting practices have long suppressed Black political power through violence, intimidation, and discriminatory laws. From literacy tests to modern ID laws, voter purges, and gerrymandering, these tactics continue to block Black participation in democracy (Hill & Coleman, 2021).
Education Discrimination
Education discrimination against Black students persists through harsher discipline, underfunded schools, and biased expectations. Rooted in slavery and segregation, these inequities drive lower achievement, higher dropout rates, and lasting social and economic harm (Annie Foundation, 2024).
Prison Economy
Black men have long been stereotyped as dangerous criminals, a racist trope rooted in post-slavery laws and the convict lease system that criminalized freed Black people and continued racial control through incarceration (Wikipedia, 2025).
Destruction of Generational Wealth
For Black families after the Civil War, land ownership meant freedom and the chance to build wealth. Yet white supremacy, racist laws, and violence stole this progress, stripping Black landowners of property and blocking generational wealth (Johnson, 2025).
Land Theft
Systemic Black land theft through heirs' property, tax sales, and the Torrens Act cut African American Land ownership from 14 million to just over 2 million acres, erasing generational wealth and economic stability (Nesbitt, 2022).
Nesbitt, T. (2022, May 6). Black Land Theft and the Racial Wealth Divide. Inequality.org.
The Negro Project Planned Parenthood
Abortion has disproportionately harmed the Black community. Founded by eugenicist Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood targeted Black neighborhoods. Black babies are six times more likely to be aborted than white babies, reflecting systemic exploitation, not healthcare (Reynolds, 2023).
Reynolds, M. (2023, October 18). Abortion is Killing the Black Community.
"One-drop rule" Mulatto, biracial and multiracial
The “one-drop rule” classifies anyone with African ancestry as Black, shaping identity and history. Biracial individuals face higher rates of mental health issues, identity rejection, and social exclusion, showing how racial rules and discrimination continue to shape lives (Hollinger, 2025).
Hollinger, D. A. (2005, January 1). One drop & one hate. American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Struck by oppression, grounded in ancestry.
War on Drugs
Forced Sterilizations
War on Drugs
Black people face stops and arrests under War on Drugs policies. Despite similar drug use, mass incarceration devastates Black communities and enforces racial control (ACLU, 2011).
Redlinning
Forced Sterilizations
War on Drugs
In 1933, the FHA segregated housing, denying Black families mortgages and labeling their neighborhoods risky, while subsidizing white suburban homeownership (Gross, 2017).
Gross, T. (2017, May 3). A ‘Forgotten History’ of How The U.S. Government Segregated Americans. NPR.
Forced Sterilizations
Forced Sterilizations
Forced Sterilizations
Over 70,000 Americans, mostly Black, poor, or disabled, were forcibly sterilized under eugenics to enforce white supremacy, with abuses continuing into the 21st century (Stern, 2020).
Stern, A. (2020, August 26). Forced sterilization policies in the US target minorities and those with disabilities—The Conversation.
Stereotypes
Forced Sterilizations
Forced Sterilizations
Racial stereotypes of African Americans, reinforced by media and laws, persist today, causing stress and marginalization. Understanding them is vital to combating systemic racism (Green, 2024).
Attacked in every way, resilient every day!
Black Native history bears centuries of struggle and survival.
Black Natives have survived centuries of anti-Blackness, Native history erasure, slavery, segregation, and systemic oppression. Targeted by white supremacy, criminalization, and generational trauma, we endure the destruction of wealth, false imprisonment, and continued racial disparities. Yet through it all, our roots remain unbroken, our legacy undeniable, and our resilience unwavering.
