There Are Just So Many Stories That

I'm A Tech Geek. Whenever I Read About Something New, I Think To Myself, How Can I Take This And Make It Black?

Thousand Years Ago, We All Descended From Africans Who Left The Continent. Those Ancestors, We Will Never Know Their Name. We Can Go Back 200 Or 300 Years And Actually Populate Your Family Tree With Real People Who Had Names And Documents. They Had Customs, Characteristics That, Unbeknownst To You, You Have Inherited. Almost Through Osmosis It Has Been Passed Down To You.

The Sad Truth Is That Without Complex Business Partnerships Between African Elites And European Traders And Commercial Agents, The Slave Trade To The New World Would Have Been Impossible, At Least On The Scale It Occurred.

The Biggest Surprise For Me, Without A Doubt, Was That The First Black People Who Came To The United States Weren't The 20 Who Arrived In Jamestown In 1619. All Of Us Had Been Taught That. The First African Came To Florida In 1513. And The Huge Shock Is We Know His Name, Juan Garrido, And That He Wasn't A Slave. He Was Free!

Where Do Real Conversations About Citizenship Occur? In Our Schools. Think About The Things You Learned In First Grade. "my Country 'tis Of Thee," "i Pledge Allegiance To The Flag," "america The Beautiful."