Byron Donalds' "Jim Crow" Comments And YouTube Comments About Byron Donalds Being A "Tether" (A Black Person Whose Ancestry Isn't From The United states)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents information about United States Representative Byron Donalds' (Republican-Florida) June 2024 comments about Jim Crow.

This post also presents a urbandictionary.com definition about the FBA (Foundational Black American) meaning of "tether". This post also presents selected comments from a Reese Waters video about Byron Donalds' Jim Crow comments.

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, political, and linguistic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/06/article-excerpts-about-population.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "Article Excerpts About The Population Referents "ADOS" (American Descendants Of Slaves) And "FBA" (Foundational Black Americans).

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
People who are members of or supportive of the ideology of FBA and/or ADOS believe that the fact that Representative Byron Donalds is of Jamaican/Panamanian descent (as indicated in his Wikipedia page*) is pertinent to his statements about Jim Crow. They certainly have a point, although I believe that you don't have to be FBA/ADOS to learn about and to recognize the evil of Jim Crow laws and Jim Crow attitudes.

For what it's worth, people who use the terms "ADOS" and/or "FBA" wouldn't consider me eligible to a member of either of these population groups. That is because I am Black Caribbean on my mother's side and I can't trace any enslaved Black American ancestry on my father's side. (My father was adopted from New York state by a Black family in Michigan. I believe that he was Black/White racially mixed, but I don't know anything about his ancestry.)

I consider myself to be pan-African in ideology and I'm highly distrustful of the motivations of the founders and spokespersons of both the ADOS and the FBA movements/lineages.

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*From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Donalds
..."Donalds was born and raised in the Crown Heights neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.[16][17] One of three children, he was raised by his single mother.[16] In 1996, Donalds graduated from Nazareth Regional High School in East Flatbush.[18] Donalds is of Jamaican and Panamanian heritage.[19][20]"...

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BACKGROUND - BYRON DONALD'S "JIM CROW" COMMENTS
From https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/10/fact-checking-byron-donalds-jim-crow-comments/ "Fact-checking Byron Donalds’ ‘Jim Crow’ comments on Black families, conservatism" by  Louis Jacobson and Samantha Putterman, June 10, 2024
"Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., a prominent supporter of former President Donald Trump, recently tried to draw Black voters to Trump’s side, but a comparison he made involving the Jim Crow era drew criticism from Democrats.

At a June 4 event in Philadelphia, Donalds compared today’s Black culture with that of the Jim Crow era, when Black people in the South were subject to multiple forms of state-sponsored discrimination. Jim Crow laws were enacted over several decades following the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction in the late 19th century and formally ended with passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the mid-1960s.

"You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together," Donalds said in a recording published by the Philadelphia Inquirer. "During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively. And then (the Department of Health, Education and Welfare), Lyndon Johnson — you go down that road, and now we are where we are."

Donalds’ mention of Johnson refers to increased federal efforts to fight poverty, which some conservatives say provided incentives for the breakup of families.

Leading Democrats criticized Donalds’ statement as lionizing the Jim Crow era. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, called out Donalds on the House floor, saying his comparison was a "factually inaccurate statement that Black folks were better off during Jim Crow. That’s an outlandish, outrageous and out-of-pocket observation."

The Congressional Black Caucus, which consists of House Democrats, demanded that Donalds apologize to Black Americans "for misrepresenting one of the darkest chapters in our history for his own political gain."

Vice President Kamala Harris weighed in May 10, saying, "It’s sadly yet another example of somebody out of Florida trying to erase or rewrite our true history," referring to a controversy over a proposed rewrite of some Black history standards for middle schools in the state. "I went to Florida last July to call out what they were trying to do to replace our history with lies. And apparently there’s a never ending flow of that coming out of that state."

Donalds defended his comments on MSNBC, saying he was not being "nostalgic" about Jim Crow but was trying to make the narrow point about Black marriage rates and a stronger conservative identity.

During the Jim Crow period, he said, "the marriage rates of Black Americans were significantly higher than any other time since then in American history" and that since then, "they have plummeted."

Some Democratic characterizations of Donalds’ remarks were overbroad. But experts told PolitiFact that Donalds’ remarks about Black Americans’ families and conservative identity were thorny in their own right.

[...]

There is some statistical evidence to support Donalds’ claim about Black marriage rates being stronger during the Jim Crow era. However, it omits a lot of important context, experts told PolitiFact, including the role of broader social, educational and economic patterns."...

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DEFINITION OF "FOUNDATIONAL BLACK AMERICAN" (FBA) AND THEIR MEANING OF "TETHER" 
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tether 
"Tether

AS Defined by FBA's

Background Information: FBA (Foundational Black Americans) refers to the LINEAGE OF Black people who are the descendants of those blacks who were enslaved during the period of U.S chattel slavery. Those include:

-native born indigenous black Americans

- Black Freemen

- the 3% or so of Africans arriving during the American slave trade and mixed in with the natives.

Tether refers to a subset of black immigrants arriving mostly after changes to the 1965 Naturalization and Immigration Laws, whom appear to have an Anti-FBA, sociopolitical agenda to replace them and undermine their efforts to pursue protections legislation, long overdue reparations from the U.S Government, and other resources that were originally earmarked to benefit FBAs. FBA's interpret the actions of these "tethers" as traitorous and treasonous since they were primarily responsible for fighting to have the 1965 immigration laws changed and amended to allow black immigrants an unprecedented pathway to citizenship in the U.S. NOTE THE DISTINCTION being made: A "tether" does not refer to "ALL" black immigrants as suggested by the hyperbole of those black immigrants who would be considered "tethers" by FBA's. This only refers to those insurgent black immigrants who move to undermine the efforts of FBAs.

A black immigrant acting as a tether will frequently undermine the efforts of FBAs

by July 3, 2022 [no screen name given]

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SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT BYRON DONALDS BEING A "TETHER" (FBA MEANING OF THAT TERM)
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJceGvENBiA "Byron Donalds & Black Conservatives Run Out of Atlanta Cigar Shop, Reese Waters, July 2, 2024

[summary statement]
"Byron Donalds didn't get the message the first time?!? Two of the most prominent Black Republicans in Congress gathered in a deep blue suburb of Atlanta to mobilize Black male voters and make a pitch for why they should consider voting Republican.

In a two-hour discussion, a crowd of close to 100, mostly Black men, sipped on cocktails and smoked cigars on Wednesday night as they filled a local cigar lounge to hear Reps. Wesley Hunt (R-Tex.) and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) lay out their positions on everything from immigration and school choice to the future of Black families and Black conservatism. And they were NOT haviiAng it.

The event, billed as “Congress, Cognac and Cigars” and moderated by former ESPN host Sage Steele, was the second in a series of gatherings about why voting Republican benefits the Black community, and part of a broader outreach effort to shore up support among Black voters for former president Donald Trump as he runs for a second term.

But the questions and repeated interruptions from attendees throughout the event put on display that while many Black men in the room and across the country might be disenchanted with President Biden, they aren’t automatically voting for Trump this fall. Instead, Donalds and Hunt, serving as messengers for the Republican Party and Trump campaign surrogates, were faced with uncomfortable conversations from a largely Black audience who were not feeling the Black conservatives. Give it up for ATL yall 👏🏽👏🏽zzz"

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[Pancocojams Editor's Note: This compilation quotes almost all of the comments about this subject in that discussion thread that were published on July 2, 2024 and July 3, 2024. As of July 3, 2024 at 6:55 PM there were a total of 254,227 of views for that video and a total of 3, 224 comments in that video's discussion thread.]

July 2, 2024

1. @harveyhotdog5085

"Bryron is not Black American"

**

Reply
2. @chadwickmitchell7067
"Neither is Wesley"

**

Reply
3. @reneem3895
"His ancestors weren’t even here during the Jim Crow era, but he has some strong opinions about reparations.

It’s very offensive to have people that did not have the black American experience, inserting themselves in something that has nothing to do with them."

**
Reply
4. @nicollettenyob
"Makes sense."

**
Reply
5. @ronaldhull8057
"@reneem3895 Someone should ask him what year his mother entered the US! He's never answered that question."

**
Reply
6. @thelovelycamille528
"@reneem3895 I feel the same way. I can’t stand these 1st/2nd generation immigrants telling us about “our” history here in America."

**
7. @DreamGirl650
"Byron Donald is Jamaican. He doesn’t have an African American perspective. It’s easier for him to throw us under the bus."

**
Reply
8. @Thisisjustname
"Seriously, I wish more people would bring this up. He doesn't have the loved history of the US to be talking about what period was implied to be better for black people."

**
9. @gusmacker919
"Byron Donalds is a tether. He’s of Jamaican and Panamanian heritage. He doesn’t come from the soil. He has no Freedmen lineage. He doesn’t speak for the grassroots FBA."

**
10. @Mike-di3mo
"Byron is not a descendant of black American slaves. That why he had no problem signing bill for that statue."
-snip-
"That statue" refers to a statue of confederate General Robert E. Lee. 

**
11. @thickblacklinenet
"He's non-FBA. They not like us. Cut the check. FBAB4U"
-snip-
"Cut the check" probably refers to FBA'd demand for reparations. 
**
12. @simssaber7503
"Byron is an immigrant, not for us."

**
13. @aquabone8118
"WE ARE NOT A MONOLITH!"

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14. @autobotdiva9268
"why did the foundational black americans show up to this immigrant talk anyway?."...

**
15. @emilystevens6335
"Tethers are DESPERATE for us to return to sleeping and vote for Kamala/Biden. Years ago when I saw the devastation to FBA men after Kamala/Brown reign I CRIED.  It was so shocking to see them homeless and dirty on the streets in Large "

**
16. @ClubQRoundDeux
"3:04 From what I understand his mother was not born America. So he isn't really a descendant of American slavery.

**
17. @msjube
"Byron Donaldson heritage is not from American  chattel slavery. He is Jamaican/Panamanian."

**
18. @ignaciofuentes2642
"Was Byron's family even in this country during the Jim Crow era?  Where is his family from?  Is he really a Black American?"

**
19. @sanduskyohiobro
"Byron Donald is Jamaican not Black American"

**
July 3, 2024

20. @jhalahnw1916
"Byron Donald isn't even a foundation black American. He is 1st or 2nd generation caribbean."

**
21. @roseiswine8294
"Bryon is not ADOS..."

**
22. @Prettygirlbelike
"these are black immigrants thats why"

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Visitor comments are welcome.

Article Excerpts About The Population Referents "ADOS" (American Descendants Of Slaves) And "FBA" (Foundational Black Americans)

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest update- October 21, 2024 

This pancocojams post presents excerpts from several selected online articles about ADOS (American Descendants Of Slaves) And FBA (Foundational Black Americans).

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and political purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/07/byron-donals-jim-crow-comments-and.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "Byron Donalds' "Jim Crow" Comments And YouTube Comments About Byron Donalds Being A "Tether" (A Black Person Whose Ancestry Isn't From The United states)."

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
This pancocojams post isn't meant to be a presentation of information about what ADOS and FBA are or have been. Instead, most of the article excerpts that are quoted in this post provide opinions that are critical of those concepts and/or movements.

FULL DISCLOSURE
This isn't a neutral post.

I consider myself to be African American (Black American). I am pan-African in ideology and I'm highly distrustful of the motivations of the founders and spokespersons of both the ADOS and the FBA lineages. 
 
People who use the terms "ADOS" and/or "FBA" wouldn't consider me eligible to use those lineage referents. That is because I am Black Caribbean on my mother's side and I can't trace any enslaved Black American ancestry on my father's side. (My father was adopted from New York state by a Black family in Michigan. I believe that he was Black/White racially mixed, but I don't know anything about his ancestry.)

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ARTICLE EXCERPTS
These excerpts are presented in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only. 

EXCERPT #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Descendants_of_Slavery
"American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) is a term referring to descendants of enslaved Africans in the area that would become the United States (from its colonial period onward), and to the political movement of the same name. Both the concept and the movement grew out of the hashtag #ADOS created by Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore.[1]

The ADOS movement focuses mainly on demanding reparations for the system of slavery in the United States.[2] They want colleges, employers and the federal government to prioritize ADOS and argue that affirmative action policies originally designed to help ADOS have been used largely to benefit other groups.[2]

Supporters of the ADOS movement say they should have their own ethnic designation on census forms and college applications, and should not be lumped in with other Black people—namely modern Black African immigrants to the United States and Black immigrants from the Caribbean.[2]

[…]

A distinguishing feature of the ADOS movement is its explicit emphasis on black Americans who descended from slavery and its disagreements with black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.[2] The group demands "a new designation on the Census with ADOS and another for Black immigrants" to the United States.[4] Supporters of ADOS push the issue on social media with the hashtag #ADOS and state that it "sets out to shift the dialogue around the identity of what it is to be African American in an effort to move the discussion from melanin and properly center the discussion around lineage";[5] they view ADOS as having distinct interests from broader groups, such as people of color or ethnic minorities generally.[3]

[…]

In 2019, some ADOS activists challenged Kamala Harris's authenticity as a Black woman, asserting that she was not "African American" (Harris's father is Jamaican American). The claim suggested that black Americans of immigrant descent, even from countries with a history of slavery under colonial rule (such as Jamaica) do not share the same struggle against racism and discrimination as the descendants of Black people in the United States.[3] The claim that Harris was not authentically black was amplified by right-wing figures, including Donald Trump Jr., and criticized by civil rights leaders,[3] who accused Carnell of engaging in xenophobic "birtherism."[2] Carnell and Moore have also criticized the African-American intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates for his past support of Barack Obama because of his pushing only for a public study of reparations rather than endorsing reparations.[3]

[...]

Size of movement

The movement is "tiny but outspoken";[3] the number of active supporters is believed to be in the thousands.[2]"...

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EXCERPT #2
From https://ibw21.org/commentary/understanding-ados-movement-hijack-black-identity-weaken-black-unity/ Understanding ADOS:- The Movement To Hijack Black Identity And Weaken Black Unity
By IBW21, January 21, 2020; Prepared By Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor
"Introduction

The term “American Descendants of Slavery” (ADOS) was created in 2016 to describe and distinctly separate Black Americans/African Americans from Black immigrant communities (Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, etc). The movement claims to advocate for reparations on behalf of Black Americans.

However, this movement’s leadership is linked to right-wing media and white supremacists that have a history of attempting to cause divisions in the Black community,” ADOS leaders say they’ll use the moniker “ADOS” as part of their legal justice claim for reparations. But instead, it is likely to be used to create policies that would further marginalize and oppress Black communities. The ADOS movement is particularly seeking to impact the 2020 presidential election, the 2020 census, and beyond.

ADOS appears to be a highly sophisticated propaganda campaign using the combination of African American history (in order to build trust) along with disinformation and misinformation tactics. Yet, with the support of economist Dr. William “Sandy” Darity and Dr. Cornel West, the ADOS movement has been able to garner legitimacy in various circles – allowing it to grow through support from unsuspecting Black Americans that support reparations.

[…]

ADOS leaders do not believe that Black Americans can or should have any connection with Africa. They tell their followers to trace their lineage to America only and to stop acknowledging Africa as the home of our ancestors.

ADOS leaders have stated that Pan Africanism is dead and that African Americans are more closely connected genetically to white Americans than other people of African descent.”…
-snip-
The bold font was originally used in this article.

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EXCERPT #3
From https://www.amazon.com/Foundational-Black-American-Who-Are/dp/B094NTGJY9 Foundational Black American Who We Are Paperback – May 9, 2021 by Christopher L Bowe DC (Author)
"A Foundational Black American is any person classified as Black, who can trace their bloodline lineage back to the American system of slavery. To be designated as a FBA, at least one parent must come from a non-immigrant background in The United States of America. If a person's matrilineal and patrilineal lineage traces back to slavery in the Caribbean, then they are not considered a Foundational Black American."...

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EXCERPT #4
From https://newsone.com/4375128/foundational-black-americans-explained/ Foundational Black Americans: Who Are They And What Do They Stand For? Written by Shannon Dawson, July 19, 2022

"Foundational Black Americans are descendants of Black slaves who built the United States from scratch.

Over the last year, you may have seen the phrase Foundational Black American (FBA) tossed around the internet thanks to the “World’s #1 Race Baiter,” Tariq Nasheed. In January, during a Twitter Spaces discussion, the controversial media personality sent the buzzword trending when he argued that Black Americans were the originators of the United States. Since then, the polarizing author and documentarian’s belief has attracted millions of supporters from the Black community, many of whom claim they too identify as a Foundational Black American. But what does the term mean exactly?

The History of the Foundational Black American

According to the Official FBA website, [https://officialfba.com/] Foundational Black Americans are descendants of Black slaves who built the United States from scratch. Followers of the ideology, however, believe that the origins and history of Foundational Black Americans did not begin at the start of slavery in the early 1600s. They strongly believe that FBA’s settled in North America in 1526, when they were allegedly brought over from the Caribbean by a “colonizer” named Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón.

Ayllón and 600 of his men settled on what would later become the South Carolina and Georgia Coast, but they weren’t there for long. The enslaved Black captives organized a successful rebellion against the Spanish colonizers, ultimately forcing them to retreat.

FBA historians believe that the liberated Black people integrated with local Native American tribes in the region and formed their own community and culture as a result.

[…]

The ideology of FBA’s

[…]

On social media, proud FBA ideologists often debate that American lawmakers should pay some form of restitution or even reparations for the “400 years of unpaid slave labour” they endured.

[…]

FBA’s don’t believe in the concept of pan-Africanism. They believe they are a unique ethnic group with complex cultural and societal ideologies different from Africans and other Black immigrants.  Community members often call those who do not identify with the culture “non-FBAs.”

Some FBA-identifying individuals believe that Africans and other Black immigrant communities do not respect them and their lived experiences throughout history.”…

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EXCERPT #5
From https://honestmediablog.com/2019/11/12/whats-the-difference-between-fba-and-ados/ "What’s The Difference Between FBA and ADOS?" Posted by Broderick Russell Jr, November 12, 2019
"Social media is a hub for political commentary, and it’s been my go-to for information on grassroots organizations. In a previous post, the now mainstream ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) movement and their agenda was addressed. Well, there’s another movement, somewhat similar to ADOS, that’s gotten my attention. FBA (Foundational Black American).

Film producer, author, and radio personality Tariq Nasheed, who coined the term, advised that Foundational Black American refers to one’s culture and lineage; it is not a group or organization. With FBA, you don’t have to have a specific political affiliation, group chapters, or events.

There’s been some discourse between both FBA and ADOS creators, most notably on Twitter, around the lack of clarity for the ADOS movement. The New York Times write-up for ADOS seemed to have been one of the precursors.

[…]

Both Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore have reiterated that the ADOS movement is a political movement centered around lineage, reparations, and a Black Agenda for African Americans. They had a successful conference at Simmons College of Kentucky this past October, and guest speakers included Marianne Williamson and Dr. Cornel West. Several local chapters have been created in the process as well. “…

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EXCERPT #6
From https://dwomowale.medium.com/why-pan-africanism-matters-lessons-from-ados-vs-fba-c643223b5672 "Why Pan-Africanism Matters: Lessons from ADOS vs. FBA" by Dwayne Wong (Omowale), Nov 13, 2019
…"My initial issue with ADOS was the manner in which the ADOS supporters were criticizing Pan-Africanism. The other issue that I had is how misinformed the ADOS movement has been. Here are just some examples of things that I have addressed. Yvette claimed that the Dutch invented dashikis and then sold them to African slave traders, which was utterly false. Antonio Moore (Tone Talks) has said that people in Africa do not identify as Africans. To help cure his ignorance on this matter, I invited him to Africans Rising’s African Liberation Day mobilization event to show Tone and others in ADOS that there is a very strong Pan-African movement in Africa. Then there are the ADOS supporters who keep spreading the untruth that Marcus Garvey came to America because he didn’t have support in Jamaica. So I have always seen ADOS as a very divisive and misinformed movement made up of people who don’t understand very much about African history, Pan-Africanism, or even their own history as African Americans.

For the most part, the people who supported the ADOS/FBA movement did not seem bothered by the divisiveness of their own movement, until recently when that movement began turning against itself when Tariq Nasheed fell out with Tone and Yvette. One of the issues that Tariq raised is the question of whether or not ADOS is a group or a lineage.

[…]

The problem is that Tone and Yvette are the founders of ADOS. They are the ones who created the label, so ultimately they are the ones to define what ADOS is. Tariq decided to use Foundational Black American (FBA) and then began using FBA interchangeably with ADOS, which created a lot of confusion. People were treating ADOS and FBA as if they were the same thing, but they are not. ADOS is Yvette and Tone’s movement. They co-founded it and continue to remind people that they are the founders of ADOS. It is their movement, not Tariq’s, although Tariq supported ADOS and helped the movement to spread.

[…]

I’ve argued that ADOS was not only divisive because of the line that it tries to draw between African Americans and other African descendants, but the movement has led to a lot of petty infighting among African Americans.

[…]

In my most recent article I addressed Morpheus Unplugged. When ADOS really started gaining traction he was one of those people who tried to present ADOS as a more practical alternative to Pan-Africanism. He recorded a video explaining why he choose ADOS over Pan-Africanism.

[…]

I mention Morpheus Unplugged because he seem to take serious issue with my argument that ADOS is a movement that is mostly talk and little action, but his response to the claims that myself and others have made is to do more videos where he talks about debunking Pan-Africanism. Again, more talk. As I explained in an article on why Togo is an example of modern Pan-Africanism, there are certain political and economic realities which makes Pan-Africanism necessary. No amount of YouTube videos talking about debunking Pan-Africanism can actually undo those realities. Doing so requires work and it requires organization, but the problem with ADOS is that it is a completely disorganized movement. As Morpheus himself admitted, ADOS seems to be imploding.

[…]

Morpheus had some very strong criticisms against me when I began criticizing ADOS. Perhaps if he listened to me he wouldn’t now be expressing concern about the fighting between Tariq and the ADOS co-founders. Morpheus himself said that choose the ADOS movement over Pan-Africanism, and even used the fact that I am a Guyanese to criticize me, rather than addressing my points directly. This the result of siding with a divisive movement that is largely built on personalized attacks against other African people. As I noted before, so long as the divisiveness was aimed towards Caribbean and African people there was no problem, but it’s a problem now because of the internal conflict within ADOS/FBA.

[…]

For some reason the ADOS movement thought that they could spread division and confusion among African people and that it the consequences of doing so would not eventually poison their own movement.

[…]

I just hope everyone who is paying attention to the conflict between ADOS and FBA understands why the ideology of Pan-Africanism is important. Pan-Africanism isn’t about building Wakanda, as Morpheus Unplugged suggests. Pan-Africanism has always been about African people uniting towards a common purpose. The ADOS vs. FBA dispute just further proves why we need unity instead of movements that are built on historical ignorance and divisive rhetoric."

Dwayne is the author of several books on the history and experiences of African people, both on the continent and in the diaspora. His books are available through Amazon. You can also follow Dwayne on Facebook and Twitter."

****
EXCERPT #7
From https://www.reddit.com/r/AskTheCaribbean/comments/1ckcn36/do_you_think_the_adosfba_movement_is_a_divide_and/ Do you think the ADOS/FBA movement is a divide and conquer strategy funded by conservatives in The US government?
[Pancocojams Editor Note: These are selected excerpts from that subreddict discussion thread. If you're interested in this subject, my recommendation is that you read that entire discussion thread.

Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.]

r/AskTheCaribbean
1. JungianFox, April 2024Go to AskTheCaribbean

"First, I’m a Black/African American with Pre-Civil War roots and I’ve been growing concerned with all the online BS activism and all these grifters co-opting actual concerns for American Black people.

ADOS stands for American Descendants of Slavery. FBA stands for Foundational Black Americans. Both ideologies are designed to delineate Pre-Civil War African Americans from other black diaspora groups and one of the goals for this is to make it easier to obtain reparations.

At first I was in support for ADOS/FBA because I definitely feel African Americans need a more specific term for our ethnicity and cultural lineage especially in regard to reparations and restorative justice. However the further I gotten into the movement, I noticed the alignment with Republicans and far right movements. Also the xenophobia, anti-African bias and colorism (many exaggerating the European DNA we have - rape blood ain’t no flex and Caribbeans are mixed too). Also what’s annoying is I grew up in the Northeast and had Caribbean, Latino and African friends and they were all Black to me. Also I never felt any confusion over who was who because they did all claim their heritage from the Caribbean or Africa.

Also, people forget Harry Belafonte, Shirley Chisholm, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Cicely Tyson and others have Caribbean roots. And we all face anti-black racism and share a similar history of slavery and colonization. And it seems stupid to argue over lineage. Majority of Black people in The US are Pre-Civil War Afro Americans and nobody is replacing us. It’s literally the same fear that racist white Anglo Americans had over every immigrant group like the Irish, Italians, Germans, Chinese and now Latinos and Indians.

And we know that governments have used the internet for social engineering and propaganda just like they did with old school media. Because before Twitter, nobody was arguing about this.

We all Black at the end of the day and I hope this FBA/ADOS nativist nonsense doesn’t go beyond the chronically online. Power is in numbers"

**
2. adoreroda, April 2024
"The ADOS/FBA movement isn't an organisation, it's an ideology, so it's nothing that the GOP could fund to begin with. The only thing you are right about is that it is a conservative movement, but the difference is that many if not most black americans are very~extremely socially conservative and are only liberal on paper (largely voting democrat) pretty much only because of race issues. The average cishet "ADOS" black man whether they be from the north, south, or west has similar values to a conservative (southern) white man if you pushed aside the views of race (particularly on topics of queer acceptance, feminism, religious tolerance, diversity, etc.)

It also doesn't help that extreme conservatives and racists are given platforms and often praised within the American-Black (ADOS/FBA whatever) community (people such as Umar Johnson, Hebrew Israelites, erasure of indigenous american history and saying that they were actually African and that black people are the real native americans, etc.) Even amongst white americans extremists like this (equivalents would be people like Nick Fuentes) are not widely regarded or at least superficially accepted compared to black equivalents"

**

3.JungianFox/ OP, April 2024
"It’s infuriating because so many of my people are so uneducated on the left and radical views of activists like WEB Dubois, Booker T Washington, Dr King, Malcolm X, Huey P Newton, Monroe Trotter, Lucy Parsons, Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer were. Many people don’t know Pan-Africanism goes back to the 1800s among Black American intellectuals. It definitely seems Evangelical Christianity and cults like NOI and Israelites did a number on a lot of us to be indoctrinated into regressive social values."
-snip-
"NOI"=Nation Of Islam

**
4. adoreroda, April 2024
"I think to certain extents it's resentment for Afro-Caribbeans and African immigrants (or their recent ancestors/descendants i.e. children grandparent w/e) often having better predicaments than their ADOS counterparts, especially Jamaicans and Nigerian Americans. Also doesn't help that the first black president and black vice president (and female vice president) are African and Caribbean rather than ADOS.

I also think something a lot of ADOS (only using this term to distinguish them from Caribbeans and Africans) is that they are very American in their thinking and can't process anything outside of their own framework (ethnocentrism) and also often look down on people who are culturally different from them, even other ADOS (especially queer black people or specifically queer ADOS). The American mindset often times--and especially the conservative variant--is very much "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down"".

**
5.  my_deleted-account_,April 2024
"Yvette Carnell and PFIR tried their right-wing anti-immigrant pity party only to see it get screwed up by COVID-19. Tariq Nasheed's involvement makes it FBADOSism impossible as a mainstream political force.

The saddest part is that all their so-called evidence, when examined are lies, with usually the exact opposite being true."
-snip-
Click https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2010/10/08/anti-immigrant-groups-continue-greenwashing-campaign for a 2010 news article about the Progressives For Immigration Reform (PFIR). 

**
6. Specialist-Smoke, June 2024
"Anytime Steve Bannon is on your side, you're moving in the wrong direction. There's a reason Bannon wants you to focus on slavery. There's no viable path for reparations through slavery. The path to reparations will have to be for what happened after slavery. When Black people paid taxes and didn't recieve the protection of the government.

As with the NOI, the ADOS people are asking for something Bannon can't and won't give. Also as with the NOI, if the KKK supports you and agrees with your message, you're broken and need a new message that doesn't resonate with those whom hate you.

I'm blocked by damn near every ADOS ijiot. I call them out on their love for their colonizer DNA, they're slippery grasp on history, and most importantly, how they sound just like white supremacist. The truth hurts."

**
7. Specialist-Smoke, 2024
"So do we stop claiming those who aren't FBA? How is this different from other races who do this? You can't separate Black people from other Black groups of people. Slave records aren't well kept, so how would you know if a Black person had roots in slavery?

It's a reductive movement meant to appease and never obtain results. If Bannon, Steve Bannon supports you, then you need to rethink your rethoric."

****
EXCERPT #8- DEFINITIONS FOR THE WORD "TETHER" USED AS A PARTICULAR POPULATION REFERENT (revised on October 19, 2024)

Here's two definitions from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tether for the noun "tether":
" a

: a line (as of rope or chain) by which an animal is fastened so as to restrict its range of movement

b

: a line to which someone or something is attached (as for security)

A crewman can clip the tether of his harness to the [safety line] and leave it clipped as he makes his way forward and aft".

****
Here are some urbandictionary.com definitions for the word "tether" when it is used as  a verb or a noun by Black people from the United States who identify themselves as "Foundational Black Americans (FBA) or as American Descendants Of Slaves/ADOS) or as used by their supporters or people influenced by FBA/ADOS people.    

* Urban dictionary.com is an online dictionary of slang words, phrases, and sayings. Visitors to that website submit their definitions of particular words to that dictionary.

As of October 19, 2024 there are five urbandictionary.com pages for the word "tether" and forms of that word. However, only the first page contains seven definitions for "tether" that pertain to its use as a population referent. 

Here is the earliest urban dictionary entry:
"Tether

A slur used by ados and fba cultists as a means to degrade and intimidate black immigrants from across the globe

Ados npc 134685: “ThESe TeTHerS KeEp UnDERmiNing Us!”

by TheBaiterX January 19, 2022, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tether
-snip-
As of October 19, 2024, this definition was upvoted by 111 visitors to that page and downvoted by 283 visitors to that page. As such, it is ranked as the fifth out of seven definition for that term (when it is used as a population referent). The ranking order of urbandictionary.com definitions is  is subject to change over time.[For the record, I didn't submit any up or down votes for any of these entries.] 

Here are the first two visitor submitted definitions as of Oct. 19, 2024 at 9:30 PM EDT. 

 https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tether

Definition #1

"Tether

A term used by members of the American Negro ethnic group (refered to later in history as colored, African-American, Black, FBA/ADOS) to describe African and/or Caribbean immigrants who move to America for economic opportunity using the benefits of the American Negro Civil Rights struggle while simultaneously disparaging the history, legacy, and lineage of the Negro American movement.

I don't know why Kuku Kufi is on the news saying African-Americans don't need reperations, he/she is a whole tether. Why are they even in the conversation? Why do they keep saying WE? Yo, that's a whole first generation immigrant.

by Crispus Attucks Reloaded September 1, 2022"
-snip-
upvoted by 560 people/downvoted by 121 people 

****
Definition #2

"Tether

A black person who moved from Africa or the Caribbean to the United States and pretends to be a Black American native to the country. Often they take anti-Black, white supremacist view points despite being black.

Jafari comes from Ghana, he’s always talking bad about Black Americans, but he wants to appropriate their culture when it’s convenient for him. He’s a tether.

by Red Joker August 4, 2022"
-snip-
-snip-
upvoted by 321 people/downvoted by 66 people 
-snip-
As of October 19, 2024 there are four additional definitions for "tether" (as a population referent) on that urbandictionary.com page.

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Black People In Appalachia: Part II: Some Stories Of Black People In Kentucky (with comments about Black People in Kentucky & in other parts of Appalachia)

Black in Appalachia, May 3, 2020

Black in Appalachia details the history of the establishment of coal camps & towns in the Eastern Kentucky coal fields & the in migration of African American laborers to the Mountain. With interviews from current & former residents of the region & scholars Philip J, Obermiller, Tom Wagner & Karida Brown, we follow the stories of these Black families through day-to-day life, out migration & the founding of the Eastern Kentucky Social Club. Founded in 1969, the EKSC is perhaps one of the longest standing African American organizations dedicated to solely social purposes. See: https://www.blackinappalachia.org/eksc

****
Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series about Black people in the Appalachia region o the United States.

This post showcases a YouTube video about Black people in Appalachia and includes selected comments from that video's discussion thread.
 
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/11/setting-record-straight-about-black.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post presents information about the term "Appalachia" and presents excerpts from several online articles about Black people in Appalachia.

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, genealogical, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the cultural legacies of Black people in Appalachia and thanks to all those who are associated with the Eastern Kentucky Social Club. Thanks also to all those who are associated with this showcase video and all those who are quoted in this post.

****
SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THIS VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD
(Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.) 

2020

1. FET Engineer
"My family & ancestry arrived to Madison County, Kentucky in 1790. We are tri-racial people from Port Tobacco, Charles County, Mayland. Today my family on average is 60% African and 40% European with Native American. My father's side is from Jackson, Ross and Gallia County in Southern Ohio which is also in the Appalachia region."

**
Reply
2. riverbilly64
"I find your post interesting. My Black ancestors are also from Maryland and I’m also from Southeastern Ohio."

**
Reply
3. harold Denton, 2021
"Lots of melungeon tri racial folks have been living in cumberland,ky and on over into blackwater,va community  and over into  sneedville,tn in Hancocke county,County,.  They came out of the eastern parts of virginia and North carolina by the mid to late 1770's."

**
4. Rebecca Mæd
"I need help! My dad’s family are from Floyd and Pike counties and I can trace my white and Native ancestors but haven’t found anything on my African DNA. I know my ancestors hid a whole lot of things but I am so stumped. Anyone else in the same predicament?"

**
Reply
5. Cashh Washington
"U got african in u?"

**
Reply
6. Rebecca Mæd
"Cashh Washington yes...Bantu, Congo. I am also descended from the 1619 First Slaves in America. I know my earliest line but I still don’t have records for my closest African ancestors. I suspect there was some cheating or claiming of a father who wasn’t the father because my great grandma Lena looked a whole lot like Rosa Parks. Very uncanny to meet Rosa and see your great grandma especially since my great grandma came from some super white looking people. The Mullins though are known to be “Melungeon” and didn’t care if you were African or Native. Sadly though I have no records showing. I do have African American (DNA confirmed) 4th cousins who don’t share known ancestry but their ancestors are from my great grandma’s area. We’ll figure it out soon enough."

****

2021

7. Jessica T.
"Born and raised in Lexington, KY and still here. I made it a point to interview my aunt, who is 95 years old, about my family's history here in Kentucky. I wished I'd talked to so many more of my elders while they were here. Some much black history/my history that I will never find in a book. Thank you for posting this documentary. It's a gem."

**
8. Bey11ktb
"Great job of documenting this part of the bluegrass states history! I didn’t think there were any blacks in Kentucky."

**
Reply
9. Errol
"Bey11ktb

Kentucky was a slave state."

**
Reply
10. suprsnips, 2022
"@Errol , Kentucky was a slave state, but it wasn't part of the Confederacy."

**
Reply
11. lorie mills, 2022
"@suprsnips  are you sure about that? I thought part of it was confederate. Didn't brothers and families in ky fight against one another because it was split? If not I was taught wrong."
-snip-
Here's some information on this subject from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_in_the_American_Civil_War
"This article is about events within the borders of the state between 1861 and 1865. For the former government in exile, see Confederate government of Kentucky.

Kentucky was a border state of key importance in the American Civil War. It officially declared its neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after a failed attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state of Kentucky for the Confederacy, the legislature petitioned the Union Army for assistance. After early 1862 Kentucky came largely under Union control. In the historiography of the Civil War, Kentucky is treated primarily as a border state, with special attention to the social divisions during the secession crisis, invasions and raids, internal violence, sporadic guerrilla warfare, federal-state relations, the ending of slavery, and the return of Confederate veterans.[1]

[...] 

Kentucky was the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd, and his southern counterpart, Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Lincoln had declared, early in the war, "I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game."[2]

35,000 Kentuckians served as Confederate soldiers; an estimated 125,000 Kentuckians served as Union soldiers.[3] Approximately 24,000 Black Kentuckians, free and enslaved, served as Union soldiers."...

**
Reply 
12.  MBFMTalkLive
"PADUCAH, KY born & raised.  SALUTE to the Black Appalachians This was an excellent "peace" of work.  Thank You. p.s.  YES, there are black people in KY.  Lol"

** 
13. Teresa Taylor 
"Wow I grew in West Virginia Bluefield I would love to see something about that most people think there are no black hillbillies but yes there are and thrive no incest nor ignorance when I moved to Ohio at 16 I was put up a grade and I  was so much further ahead of them I only had to take one class😁huh""

**
14. William Matthews
"FROM MAYFIELD KENTUCKY. SHOUT OUT TO THE BLACK PPL IN APPALACHIANS"

**
Reply
15. Linda Mae Mullins
"❤️"

**
Reply
16. DeHart Family
"Shoutin back, from East Tennessee."

**
17. pj roe
"Very good documentary never thought about black miners and very impressed with attitude of the Steel companies to create a balanced environment for all people with the same wages just what many people wanted equal pay for work but I am sure there were some inequalities"

**
18. Isaac Hill
"Shout out to the Hill family. Descendents of Black, Gates, Pennsylvanian Coal Miners..."

**
Reply
19. Isaac Hill
"Gates Hill's are Cleveland Hill's"

**
Reply
20. Linda Mae Mullins
"❤️"

** 
21. Brother Jamil
"Fascinating!  Is there anyone here who remembers anything about Middlesboro?  My family were the Carsons, the Balls, and the Ramseurs…"

**
Reply
22. Brother Jamil
"We migrated to Cincinnati in the 1930s, except for the Ramseurs (Aunt Gladys and Cousin Kyle) who stayed in Bell County."

**
23. Black in Appalachia
"Good Morning Brother Jamil. Those names sound familiar. Please take a peek at these school records from Middlesboro's Lincoln School. Some of them have photographs: https://blackinappalachia.omeka.net/collections/show/50"

**
24. Wilson's Channel and More. Aka Jason Ryan Wilson
"I live in Bell. They had an all black high school back in the 50s in Middlesboro. Every summer the descendants of Lincoln high always comes back to Middlesboro for a reunion.I go every year, and always have a ball. Drinkin, smokin, cookouts, and a lot of dancing! My favorite part? It's listening too the elders talk about their struggles and how they persevered. If the youth only knew their struggles!"

**
Reply
25. Kaleah Collins
"Are you part BLACK yourself?"

**
Reply
26. Wilson's Channel and More. Aka Jason Ryan Wilson
"@Kaleah Collins  no. Part Cherokee and Irish. But my father was a cop back in the 70s and his partner was black and my godfather. When I was a baby. My father passed at 34 from a heart attack. They're isn't gonna be a high school reunion due to covid."

**
27. Terri T.
"Wow! I never knew their were black coal miners and let alone in the Appalachian Mountains. Thank you for this awesome documentary. I would really like to research one for black railroad workers that were not Porters. My great grandfather was a worker and built the house I now have."

**
Reply
28. Lies, damn lies, and stats Weird
"+ Terri T. My maternal grandfather was a black coal miner. I never met him because he died in s coal mining accident when my mother was only 6 years old."

**
29. Thomas Stevens
"I am Kentucky born growed up in Kentucky. My daddy worked in the coal mine. When I got old enough I went to work in the coal mine. Worked with some black men in the mine. We watched after each other like brothers. It sad to hear that when the miners left work they were separated. When will finally unite as one. We have always been divided to conquer. Truth to power"

**
30. Bey11ktb
"Is this why Kentucky has a hbcu in Kentucky state??"
-snip-
"HBCU"= Historical Black Colleges & Universities
Here's information about the two HBCUs in Kentucky:
from https://www.wdrb.com/news/new-highway-signs-to-recognize-kentuckys-historically-black-colleges-and-universities/article_19698f6a-31cd-11ec-bd8f-a32ccc46e150.html
..."Louisville and Frankfort are home to the only two historically black colleges or universities in the Commonwealth: Simmons and Kentucky State University.

There will never be another historically black college or university, because to qualify, the institution had to have been in existence before 1964."...

**
Reply
31. B J Williams
'hbcu 's were created at first as Normal Schools to teach ex-slaves to read and write, to prepare them better for share-cropping. I graduated from Kentucky State in 1967...its now 1/2 white. Born in Harlan, grandfather worked in Lynch mines, he passed of black lung around 1964. In California for decades now, retired---grew up with Jim Crow Laws--separate schools, back of the bus, lived in 'colored' section of town--they tore it down. We had our churches and schools, also a few businesses. You were still very safe growing up...one of my great nephews couldn't understand how I grew up with no hot water in the house, my son when he was little couldn't understand no tv. Owell..everything is on youtube, reflections. Stay safe, I took the vaccine, believe in science.. ;)

**
32. Airashii The Empress
"Beautiful love my black people you are the country's hero's that made it possible for my island people to be here God bless you all. The way you all feel about Eastern Kentucky is how I feel about my neighborhood that was dominantly all black in the 80's and very dangerous but I will always be proud to be from East Pal Alto ca and enjoy going back home like"

**
32. Victor Thomas
"Nice ADOS History"
-snip-
Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Descendants_of_Slavery for information about the ADOS movement.  Here's a quote from that page:
"American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) is a term referring to descendants of enslaved Africans in the area that would become the United States (from its colonial period onward), and to the political movement of the same name. Both the concept and the movement grew out of the hashtag #ADOS created by Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore.[1]

The ADOS movement focuses mainly on demanding reparations for the system of slavery in the United States.[2] They want colleges, employers and the federal government to prioritize ADOS and argue that affirmative action policies originally designed to help ADOS have been used largely to benefit other groups.[2]

Supporters of the ADOS movement say they should have their own racial category on census forms and college applications, and should not be lumped in with other Black people—namely modern Black African immigrants to the United States and Black immigrants from the Caribbean.[2]"...

**

33. Carlton Upton
"My great-great-grandmother was from the Kentucky area and I never knew that before and she was Native American and white and then she married a ex-slave and that is how my family tree began a few continue to few centuries ago"

**
34. Nappy Scribe
"Let’s see, Bill Withers was from a coal mining city. I know Bill’s city had a funny name."

**
Reply
35. myradioon
"I know he was from West Virginia. "Grandma's Hands" is a great song."
-snip-
Here's some information about Bill Withers from William Harrison Withers Jr. (July 4, 1938 – March 30, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter and musician.[2] He had several hits over a career spanning 18 years, including "Ain't No Sunshine" (1971), "Grandma's Hands" (1971), "Use Me" (1972), "Lean on Me" (1972), "Lovely Day" (1977) and "Just the Two of Us" (1981). Withers won three Grammy Awards and was nominated for six more. His life was the subject of the 2009 documentary film Still Bill.[2] Withers was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.[3][4] Two of his songs were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[5]

[...]

Withers, the youngest of six children, was born in the small coal-mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, on July 4, 1938.[6][7] He was the son of Mattie (née Galloway), a maid, and William Withers, a miner."...

**
36. Juan Pueblo
"Her mother had to FETCH Rain water with an ENVELOPE so that her BLACK KIDS could have some water to DRINK...

The EVILS of SEGREGATION....."

***
37. Pharoah 1
"Is this the baskketball coach Bernie Bickerstaff?"

**
Reply
38. doug jones, 2022
"Yep"
-snip-
Here's some information about Bernie Bickerstaff from :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Bickerstaff
"Bernard Tyrone Bickerstaff (born February 11, 1944) is an American basketball coach and front office executive, currently serving as the Senior Basketball Advisor for the Cleveland Cavaliers.[1][2] As a coach, he previously worked as the head coach for the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics, Denver Nuggets, Washington Bullets/Wizards, Charlotte Bobcats, and Los Angeles Lakers. He has also been an assistant for the Portland Trail Blazers,[3] Chicago Bulls,[4] Los Angeles Lakers, and Cavaliers. He has served in numerous other NBA front office positions, and has been a consultant for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Early years

Bickerstaff was born in Benham, Kentucky, where his father and grandfather worked in the coal mines.[citation needed] He often had to endure open racism.[citation needed] He attended East Benham High School, where he was the starting point guard of the basketball team.[citation needed]

After graduating in 1961, Bickerstaff moved to Cleveland where he had relatives, with the idea of joining the Army, but he instead accepted a basketball scholarship to play for Rio Grande College. The racial tension he experienced during his time playing there made him leave school early and head back to Cleveland to work in a steel mill.[citation needed] However, the difficult working conditions prompted him[citation needed] to accept a second opportunity to play college basketball at the University of San Diego from 1964 to 1966. As a senior, he was named team captain and MVP, when the Toreros finished 17–11 and went on to play at the Small College Regional Playoffs. He is a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity."...

**
39. Samantha Oden
"My family (Oden) is from McRoberts originally from Alabama. These stories sound familiar because my dad and his siblings often told us about growing up in this area."

**
40. Christie Bussey
"Aww this is such a BEAUTIFUL thing!!  At the time ... '50 years' of Community/Family ties! SEKHA reunion, NICE! Continuous Blessings of longevity for the Descendants of the Eastern Kentucky Coal Miners!!  I certainly enjoyed watching this docu-storey, and even though I am not from Kentucky this story warmed my heart. Keep the Legacy ALIVE!!  :)"

**
41. Roderick Wilson
"Great story my grandfather Robert madison worked in the xoal mines in Appalachia birch west Virginia a bridge town across from eastern Kentucky. He brought my great grandmother freedom from sharecropping. 1919 to 1921 my uncle Napoleon Madison sr was born in birch west Virginia"

**
41. Rock Hammer Demolition
"What a wonderful club.  These clubs are important to the keeps bonds strong amongst a people of a shared heritage. It reminds them of where they come from. So important and it makes the individual a part of some thing much larger than them selves. Wonderful club indeed.  I pray it continues to the next generation."

**
42. Mike Materne
"I'm from Roanoke Virginia, and while visiting The Booker T. Washington birthplace national monument, the ranger informed me that the adult male slaves were sent to the Kanawha Valley near present day Charleston WV to mine coal. I'm sure once freed, they recruited family to work in the mines."

**
43. S J
"I’m from a Coal Mining Town in WV. The middle school I attended was actually built as a segregated school for black students, the coal camp they lived in was called String Town. When the mines shutdown the black population moved away. My family also moved away to Chicago."

**
44. Abdus Luqman
"Wow, this so interesting. I never heard of this part of African-American history."

**
Reply
45. "Greedom Worldwide
"*Foundational Black American History"

**
Reply
46. larry jones
"A truly epic tribute to a people, and their culture/heritage. It would be an absolute  tragedy if their story is allowed to be forgotten, or loss. It really moved me, and to my knowledge, I have no connection to anyone from that region...may you continue to strive. Be Blessed and thanks for such a beautiful story."

**
Reply
47. Jerome White
"I really enjoyed this program.  The history of Eastern Kentucky from the African American perspective was AWESOME.  I lived in Pikeville,  Kentucky for approximately five years and I am a good friend of Pastor Peake of Fleming,  KY. While living in Pikeville,  I was a member of Mount Zion Baptist Church.  I love Eastern,  Kentucky and the loving spirit of people there. Thanks for such a great documentary."

**
48. Deanna 
"I’m from Perry county/Hazard in eastern KY.  My dad worked in the mines.  Oh I loved watching this documentary.  I had no idea that there was ever that many black people in eastern Kentuck at any time.  I never lived I. A coal camp because my dad got disabled in 1957 when I was five years old.  What a wonderful group of people"

**
49. Alan Taylor
"Most people don't realize this but Madison County, Kentucky is within the Appalachian region and is called a transitional county so, I'm here representing all the black families of Madison County, Kentucky. My family is from Foxtown & Berea area starting as far back as the late 1700s. Census Tract 102, in Madison County, Kentucky, is designated as a distressed area in fiscal year 2021 because it has a median family income of $46,250 (62.5% of U.S. avg.), a poverty rate of 34.0% (241.6% of U.S. avg.), and mentioned earlier is located in a transitional county. It has a population of 3,991 (Census ACS, 2014-2018)."

**
50. Mali Rabbit
"This is a great documentary! My folks are from Mississippi . Women in the coal mines! Dang, I just learned something! I just subscribed to the channel and the podcast. Live long and prosper, y’all ! At 48:30, is that Alex Haley ? P S, I want to cry happy tears!"
-snip-
Here's some information about Alex Haley from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Haley
"Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992)[1] was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and aired it in 1977 to a record-breaking audience of 130 million viewers. In the United States, the book and miniseries raised the public awareness of black American history and inspired a broad interest in genealogy and family history.[3]

 

Haley's first book was The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, a collaboration through numerous lengthy interviews with Malcolm X.[4][5][6]

[…]

Early life and education

Alex Haley was born in Ithaca, New York, on August 11, 1921, and was the eldest of three brothers (the other two being George and Julius) and a half-sister (from his father's second marriage). Haley lived with his family in Henning, Tennessee, before returning to Ithaca with his family when he was five years old. Haley's father was Simon Haley, a professor of agriculture at Alabama A&M University, and his mother was Bertha George Haley (née Palmer), who had grown up in Henning. The family had Mandinka, other African, Cherokee, Scottish, and Scottish-Irish roots.[7][8][9][10] The younger Haley always spoke proudly of his father and the obstacles of racism he had overcome."...

** 
51. ThatOtherDebra
"My Dad was a UMWA coalminer. He was a good man. These men are correct, regardless of color, you're all family in the mines."

**
Reply 
52. KingofGrace
"Why can't it be that way above ground?"

**
53. Pamela Flores
"I love the clip of this where the man says " their was no Black,  no white under ground,  only family " that's the way it should be. Why is it so hard for all people to be as one?"

**
Reply 
54. Chelsea P
"You didn't hear the part where they talked about how the town was socially controlled by those in power to stop unions, or stop striking? Their are people in every town making sure racism persist for the points of control. Only God can stop this."

**
55. Indigo Flow
" @Chelsea P  Indeed. Racism is a byproduct of capitalism."

**
56. Tyrelle Greenwood
"Wow great video well put together documentary never realized this about Kentucky very interesting coming from a south western pa native."

**
57. Marie Katherine
"Thanks for this video.  I love Appalachia and the history, but the black experience of the region is something of which I know little to nothing!  Naming a town Lynch, however, not so good."

**
Reply
58. Dcain2
"It was named after a man with the last name of Lynch."

**
Reply
59. Marie Katherine
"@Dcain2  I get it. It still has not the best connotation."

**
60. Jessica Webb
"This is awesome am bi racial my mother is black my daddy is white and my roots go back to Harlan bell County  Arjan Frakes and on both sides my grandfathers on both sides the white and black and my father was a miner man his father was a superintendent love my roots and I ve seen it from both sides both races proud where and who I come from"

**
61. Linda Mae Mullins
"❤️"

****

2022

62. Anicia Lugo
"This is True BLACK HISTORY that I didn't know about 😎😃👑❤️"

**
63. suprsnips
"I lived in Lynch, Ky until I was 12 years old. I was a white kid, on a street where the black kids walked by my house on the way to school. They were all well dressed, and clean, and all carried their books home at night. I have to say, they put us white kids to shame. Lynch residents were kind of a melting pot from all over, we had black folks from Alabama, hillbillies from the mountains, and people from over 30 countries in Europe. With a few exceptions, we seemed to get along with each other pretty good."

** 
64. BassMonsterTiff
"That penny with a hole in it, the coal miner credit token… my great grandma used to say stuff like “that man aint worth a penny with a hole in it!” And i never knew what she meant lol"

** 
65. Donell Green
"Wow my grate grandfather told me about the skinny guy that pick yu up and carry yu to Lynch Kentucky from Alabama my Grate grandfather was a part of the story that these people are telling him only and I’m fortunate to sit back and hear it"

**
66. Melissa Richter
"Be nice to do a follow up interview with these same people to see how they feel today. My guess is this was taped in 2009-2010."

**
Reply
67. Black in Appalachia
":) These were conducted 2018 – 2019"

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68. Deon Sellers 
"My family on my mother's side were in Appalachia(KY & TN) for generations pre-civil war.Some in KY were completely non black & up until the mid-80s we visited them every summer.Some of our Black relatives lived at the bottom of a holler all in a row.My great-relative lived in the middle of a hollar,he had a phone so he was the most popular person there.lol The story always went 'migrants were racist,we're all kin'.I've heard of bad experiences but maybe we never saw it because we were related.Appalachians are some of the sweetest people I've ever met.Everybody used to talk about the Black migrant "towns" who came back in the day.I'm so glad this video popped up on my feed."

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69. WILL F.
"Great documentary. I learned a lot from the video about the genesis of the migration of folks to eastern Kentucky and the motivation behind it.

Also the migration map that was briefly shown was right on point. It correctly showed the path of the mass migration  of my family, who were slaves and then sharecroppers/cotton pickers in South Carolina,  up the now I-95 corridor  to DC, Philadelphia and New York which happened in the 1920s through the 1940s.

Thanks so much for your excellent work and I will pass it on."

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70. Dove leboeuf
"I'm from Eastern Ky. My grandfather bought coal trucks after he had worked in the mines, but preferred to drive coal trucks. So my daddy drove one. So my dads family was involved in the coal industry for a long time. My grandfather died from black lung. My grandfather said they were black men that worked in the mines when he did, he said he didn't ever have any problems working with them because they were just trying to make a living for they're families like he was. We were taught not to use the "N" word at a young age. We were told that wasn't polite to call black people names. That people couldn't help what color they was. Because my mom is bout 3/4 Cherokee Indian. So there was alot of people that was mixed with Indian blood so I guess Thats why they didn't think nothing working with blacks. Yeah the men watched out for each other because like the man said they were all underground together and it wasn't safe at all!!!"

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71. Evelyn Parham
"This is an excellent documentary. I learned so much that I didn't know."

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72. P Junos
"nice documentary! i talk with my nana all the time about her growing up in burkesville/bowling green ky and my grandfathers fam being from virginia and how they moved to pennsylvania. puts alot of her stories in perspective."

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73. Kenyata Sims
"This video was very well done and very informative‼️‼️‼️

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74. Curtis White
"Thank you, this video has has help me understand questions I have always had of " How did my family migrated from the cotton fields of Alabama and Mississippi to the coal mines of Kentucky and eventually residents of NY and Pa."*

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