Introduction
November 6th has come and gone, and its interesting how many people want to talk to me about my feelings on a second Trump administration. Not because I don't understand the need to process how a country's majority could choose this, but because of the surrounding context that bookends Election Day 2024.
First and foremost, I'm diasporic. I am a descendent of resistors who both fought and fled State violence within living memory. My family was so traumatised that I was 32 years old and only just learning that I still have living family in the village my parents escaped from, six years after my mother died from lung cancer. I learned at 33 years old, from my sibling who visited my mother's village, that the village built a sacred building in our grand-uncle's name since he was murdered during a protest against State violence. My parents fled to so-called New York City after my grandparents and great-grandparents already having to migrate following the violence of dismembering our collective ancestral land that was once brimming with lively, diverse traditions and ancestral memory. I moved from Lenape land (so-called New York City) to Alba (Scotland) in 2019--just 6 months before COVID was known to have made its way to the UK.
I mention this because I grew up from one traumatised land to a family that fled another, only to move to a third. I cannot express the depth of my knowing--but I wasn't taught the vocabulary by my parents. They were too traumatised to speak about it, to articulate it in any nuanced way. It was too fresh, too recent, of an 'overt' attack on their psyche ('overt' in quotes because who can claim 'covert' violence other than the perpetrator who hoped to get away with it?).
I was looked after, nourished, and nurtured, ultimately, by survivors of enslavement. I grew up on stories of code being braided or a particular part of your house being painted just to communicate safety through word of mouth for people who were kept from the very valuable resource of knowledge.
Somehow, though, I find myself in the belly of the Beast who separates 'anti-racism', 'intersectionality', and fundamentally Black heritage from the Black women that birth them through the survival of enslavement. For instance, the first person to articulate an 'intersectional theory' is Sojourner Truth in 1851--a former enslaved woman who fled her enslaver/abuser/kidnapper/captor/jailer/imprisoner. The first person to embody and enact anti-racist practice was enslaved descendant of the Ashanti: Harriet Tubman, the prominent conductor of the Underground Railroad who carried a pistol on her hip to ensure that anyone that got cold feet did not threaten the safety of the collective. Alongside Tubman, there are lesser known individuals like the Women of Boston e.g. Elizabeth Blakely and Jane Johnson. Black women across the so-called US activated their agency to choose between liberty or death; and we continue to see the legacy of that pivotal choice.
The horrifying fact, however, is that the UK fails to educate their citizens of British History—as if once the so-called Americans settled, they were no longer tied to Britain. In fact, an English-born and raised TikToker that now lives in the so-called US was astounded when he learned about the American Revolution from his children who are attending school in the so-called US. Considering their own history is not taught to them (which is not a surprise), is it any surprise that it was as early as 2022 (if not earlier) before Lord Carloway declared that Scotland’s enslavery role cannot be glossed over?
Coming from the so-called US to a country that is so convinced it is “not as bad” as the so-called US is why I developed PTSD with somatic syndrome following my insistence that workplaces dig deeper to understand implicit bias due to the dilution of what implicit bias means in the first place. And, if you need ‘scientific proof’, here’s an open access journal article that traces the historiography of Scotland’s view on its role and complicity in the transatlantic enslavery. This is even more alarming when we consider the actions of Scottish Highlanders enslaving Africans towards the plantations of Guyana, while also knowing that other Scottish Highlanders created solidarity links with the indigenous people of America, some of whom were phenotypically racialised as Black.
Yes, Black Natives exist—and the surprise that might cause you, dear reader, is the extent to which we have allowed colonial logic to subsume our understanding and meaning of the world.
Therefore, on this Remembrance Day as a practicing memory keeper, I want to remind you all of the ongoing erasure and social death of survivors of enslavement who continued to be tasked with providing for Empire while having been erased and resist the same Empire that relied on them.
During World War I, so-called America became involved in World War I as early as 2 April 1917 when President Woodrow Wilson requested a declaration of war against Germany before Congress. During the war, and far from the segregated shores of America, over 380,000 African American soldiers carried not just the weight of their military gear, but the heavy burden of fighting for freedom in a country that denied them their own fundamental rights. Their story highlights the bitter irony, profound courage, and seeds of resistance that later blooms into the Civil Rights Movement.
“Make Way for Democracy”
When America officially entered World War I in 1917, even though Black Americans were involved as early as 1913 if not earlier, many African Americans viewed the conflict as an opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism and worth as citizens not realising, yet, that patriotism will not save them from white supremacy and conditional humanity. In fact, W.E.B. Du Bois urged folk in 1918 writing:
We of the colored race have no ordinary interest in the outcome. That which the German power represents today spells death to the aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for equality, freedom and democracy. Let us not hesitate. Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills.
However, as we now know, the bitter reality of systemic racism persisted even as Black people answered the nation’s call. We now know that we will already be asked to defer our dreams of liberation for the persistence of colonial logic—and asked to unify to deflect accountability for this fact. In fact, when Black people enlisted to support the nation, White military leadership actively worked to suppress Black participation in combat roles, relegating 89% of Black people to labor and supply units; segregation remained strictly enforced; and there were even propaganda distributions by the American government to French civilians warning them against treating Black soldiers as equals highlighting that the call for unity is disproportionately expected by those who are already pushed and denigrated to the margins.
As cheeky as it may sound to a privileged non-American and non-Black person: this act is akin to telling a canary in the coal mine that they need to stop singing because it is disrupting the work. That’s what those who support centralised power sound like, and anyone else who is complicit does not stop to question the absurdity of it. Instead, they find ways to silence the canary altogether and query why no one warned them that the cave was about to collapse on top of them.
Valor in the Face of Oppression
Despite all of the history between being enslaved and only symbolic freedom, Black units like the 369th Infantry Regiment (15th New York Colored Infantry Regiment)– the legendary “Harlem Hellfighters” – served with extraordinary distinction. Their commitment to their duty was unmatched, spending 191 days in combat, longer than any other American unit. Throughout their deployment, not a single soldier was captured, nor did they lose a foot of ground to the enemy. Their valor was so remarkable that the entire regiment received the Croix de Guerre from the French government. Soldiers like Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts emerged as symbols of heroism, their stories inspiring generations to come to push back against white politicians when they seek to suppress community defense.
The Bitter “Homecoming”
The cruel irony awaited the return of these radical militants who served in World War I for the Allies against Germany. Instead of finding a more equitable America acknowledging their offerings of service, Black veterans faced an intensified wave of racial violence and lynchings, with some attacked while still wearing their military uniforms. They were systematically excluded from veterans’ benefits and GI programs, while their demands for basic rights were met with fierce resistance. The period saw a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, emboldened in their campaign of terror against Black communities.
The response to their service further planted the seeds of resistance that made the status of being human clearly conditional—if bestowed at all. Many veterans returned with a strengthened resolve to fight for justice, having experienced relative equality in France in comparison. Their exposure to a different way of life created an unshakeable determination to challenge the status quo in the so-called US rather than being content with symbolic gestures of freedom and equality.
Legacy of Transformation
The participation of Black Americans in World War I marked a pivotal moment in the continued long struggle for civil rights (read: human rights). Critically, it exposed the hypocrisy of fighting for “democracy” abroad while denying it at “home”. Veterans returned with a (re)newed consciousness and determination to fight oppression, their experiences profoundly influenced contemporary organizations like the NAACP and parking new forms of resistance. The “New Negro” movement gained momentum during this period, laying crucial groundwork for future activism.
Reflecting on Present Struggles
We continue to grapple with ongoing systemic racism and injustice, the dilution of anti-racist praxis, the continued subjugation of Black people, the continued segregation following policies that deepen racial inequity because of the erasure of Black Americans, and the conflation between the American hegemonic culture (so-called Americanization) and Black heritage in resisting Americanization in the first place.
The experiences of Black Americans shows us that white ‘progress’ often comes at a terrible cost, and that colonial logic follows a very predictable pattern of behaviour no matter how sophisticated it’s technology nor how unconscious its complicit perpetuators are to the hair-line connections in the struggle for justice. Their story reminds all of us, that the fight for liberation requires confronting inconvenient truths, and that the purported resilience of melanated people of color is actually courage in the face of oppression that will soon claim their lives in one way or another until true seeds of transformation is nurtured to bloom.
Their legacy calls us to examine how we perpetuate and remain complicit or disrupt and resist systems of oppression in our own institutions and communities—anywhere it exists.
This Remembrance Day, I honor my venerated Black ancestors (not ancestors by blood or lineage) by practicing being a memory keeper. I invite you to commit to the ongoing work of creating the just society rebellious Black Americans were and are fighting for by unearthing the memories white supremacy culture has continued to hope that we have long forgotten.