Being "African" American

A Guest Blog for Black History Month by Ayomide Sekiteri 

(Ayomide Sekiteri is a Centennial Ambassador with the Student Conservation Association and the National Park Service, working as a Volunteer Coordinator on the National Mall in Washington, DC.)

After almost 23 years of living in America, I am still always questioning what it means to be black in America.  For many, this sounds like a foreign topic. I’m black and was born in America, end of story -- yet this is not the case. I spent many years learning to identify with being black in America.

Photo: Ayomide Sekiteri

My parents were born and raised in Nigeria. They later came to America and started a life for themselves.  A few years later, I was born in August of 1993 in Baltimore, Maryland. The moment I was born, I was placed in between two worlds, two ways of thinking, and two ways of living. I was the first generation in my family to become an American by birth. I never realized what an honor this was, or the pressure that it would bring to bear on my life. It wasn't as if I had a choice.

Photo: Google Maps

Growing up, it took me a while to even notice these differences. When I began school I was often faced with questions like:

• How do you pronounce that? (My name)
• Do you speak African? (Implicit in this question is that Africa is a country, not a continent, and that all Africans speak the same language.)
• Your English is great, when did you immigrate here from Africa?
• You're not really black. Do you consider yourself black?

The questions, no matter how innocent, made me wonder where I belonged. Though I was born in the United States, I was constantly treated as though I was a foreigner in my own country.

Photo: thesca.org (https://www.thesca.org/connect/blog/working-with-the-presidents)

Ayomide and her favorite monument on the National Mall

My story isn't unique. In the back of my mind, I always questioned where I fit into black history when everyone treated me differently, even when our skin was the same.

With age I have discovered that I have never needed to be one or the other, because I am both. I remain caught between two worlds, owning my African heritage and recognizing my blackness in America. I am also lucky enough to bridge this gap, to help unite these two histories and create a broader definition of what it means to be African American.

Photo: Ayomide Sekiteri

What's in a Name?

A Guest Blog for Black History Month by Willie Brooks

(Note: Willie Brooks is a VISTA volunteer in Indianapolis, Indiana.)

Black History Month offers unique challenges for African-Americans who want to engage in genealogical research. The word surname is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the name borne in common by members of a family.” More commonly referred to as a last name here in the United States, a surname not only connects living family members to one another, but provides a link to those ancestors who came before you – if indeed those links can be followed.

Figure 1: Shows my sample family tree on an ancestry website

Asking a person about their ancestry can often induce a sense of pride amongst people. There are a number of services today that help people learn the stories of their ancestors; for instance, where they lived, what they did for a living, how they died. Today many companies offer genealogy services, which provide historical records, help build family trees, and connect people with the kind of familial knowledge that would otherwise elude them.

Figure 2: Depicts the logo from popular ancestry website Ancestry.com

One of the most well-known online services, Ancestry.com, founded in 1983, celebrated its two millionth user in 2012, and boasts that its users have access to over 12 billion historical records and images from more than 40 countries, dating back to 1270 C.E.

February is Black History Month, a time not only to honor outstanding members of the Black community who have contributed to the historical narrative that is uniquely American, but also a time to reflect on the many sacrifices of the Black community that led to the present day. But knowledge of our genetic past becomes much more difficult as you move beyond more recent history and approach the historical period where slavery was once commonplace.

Figure 3: The image above shows the grotesque manner in which slaves were packed into slave ships to maximize space.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (1500’s-1900’s) displaced over twelve million Africans over its duration, and while many of them were sent to other countries that also engaged in the slave trade, the total slave population in the United States reached four million by the end of the Civil War. 

I, personally, am disconnected from the story of my ancestors. Members of my family believe that my great grandparents might have been slaves at some point, but unfortunately I might never know for sure. A stolen history has become an ugly, inconvenient truth, one that is unfortunately all too commonplace in my community.  The rich ancestral histories that are relished by many are forever lost to some. For many African-Americans, our surname serves as a subtle reminder of that darker time in the history of this great nation, but thanks to our predecessors who fought for freedom and equality, we now have the ability to write our own chapter and give our names a new meaning.