To: The President of the United States, The U.S. Congress, and The U.S. Census Bureau.

 

The Issue: A Specific Federal Debt

The United States government has an unresolved debt to a specific group of people: the descendants of persons formerly enslaved in the United States. This is not a matter of racial identity; it is a matter of lineage and specific government obligation.
For over a century, the federal government has attempted to address the economic destruction of American chattel slavery using broad "minority" programs. This approach has failed because it treats a specific political debt as a general social grievance. The economic disenfranchisement of Foundational Black Americans (FBA) is the direct result of specific federal policies—from the failure of Reconstruction to the exclusion from FHA home loans—that targeted a specific lineage.

The Case for Political Status:

We assert that Foundational Black Americans constitute a political class defined by ancestry and history, consistent with U.S. legal precedent.

• The Precedent: Federal law already recognizes that groups defined by descent and specific treaty obligations (such as Native American tribes) are "political entities," not just racial minorities.

• The Claim: Our claim is not based on skin color. It is based on a direct, traceable lineage to individuals who were held in chattel slavery by the authority of the United States and who were subsequently denied the rights of citizenship promised by the 14th Amendment.

• The Harm: The wealth disparities facing this lineage are not natural; they are the result of state-sanctioned economic exclusion. For example, between 1934 and 1962, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) largely excluded this specific lineage from the mortgage market, preventing the intergenerational wealth transfer that other American families benefited from.

Our Demands:

We, the undersigned, demand that the Federal Government recognize the specific standing of this lineage.

1. Codify the Lineage Definition We call for the adoption of the ancestry-based standard voted on by the California Reparations Task Force for all federal remedial programs. Eligibility must be defined not by race, but by descent:

An individual who is an African American descendant of a chattel enslaved person or the descendant of a free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century.

2. Establish "FBA" as a Political Classification We demand a political status that recognizes our group based on descent and history. This status must acknowledge the "unresolved federal obligation" stemming from the failure of Reconstruction and the specific economic destruction of our lineage. This classification will protect specific remedies from "strict scrutiny" legal challenges that threaten broad race-based programs.

3. Disaggregate Data to Reveal Lineage Status We demand that the Census Bureau and all federal agencies track this lineage specifically. We need accurate data on the economic status of the descendants of U.S. slavery to reveal the true extent of Lineage-Based Economic Disenfranchisement.

We cannot resolve a specific debt if the government refuses to identify the specific creditor.

Conclusion:

We are not asking for a racial preference. We are asking for the acknowledgement of a specific historical lineage and the unpaid debt attached to it. It is time to treat this as a political obligation.