Goals
These goals constantly are evolving and more will be added.
Please return to see our progress.
I. FAMILY REUNION
Uniting people with relatives who are unknown to them
due to family separations during slavery
Many are surprised to learn that up to 70% of ALL Americans have African DNA,
but most don't know it because their distant ancestors "passed" and intermarried.
(Well, to be accurate, everyone in the world descended from Africans.)
Therefore, everyone can register.
THE ONLINE FORM and PAPER FORM
ARE BEING DESIGNED.
When the paper form has been created, you will be asked to print out the form to give to newspapers to include as a public service to the community
and to churches and other organizations to include in their printed bulletins.
We understand that the registration and data-gathering processes will be going on for
decades. Every journey of a thousand miles has its first step. This is ours.
As the years go by, volunteers will gather information from national, state, county, and city archives containing
slave sales records and slaveowners' ledgers, as well as post-Civil War marriage, birth and death records,
Reconstruction era voting records, and every other record that still exists. On the
federal level, there are thousands of slave narratives from ex-slaves
interviewed during the 1930's in all of the southern states and a few northern
ones. The records of these formerly enslaved individuals include their
full names (and maiden names), and often the names of their spouses,
parents, children, slaveowners, plus the state, county, and city limits in which
they were born and even, in many cases, the exact street address, city, and
state in where they were when they were interviewed.
A database will be created with all of the blood-line last
names of each entry. When any last name is searched, all entries with
that name will appear along with all related information. We will
provide a safe way for individuals to be contacted if they wish to be.
The database will be available online. Those with
computers can assist those who do not have one. Libraries with internet
access are available to the general public.
For those of you who have access to computers, please print out
many copies this form to give to all of your relatives -- especially the eldest
-- as well as to your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers, and African
Americans who are total strangers to you. Please ask them to copy the form
and give them to their relatives -- especially the eldest -- and to their
friends, their neighbors, their co-workers, and African Americans who are total
strangers to them.
Please give as many copies as you can to organizations and
churches and civic groups and ask their members to photocopy the forms to give
to their relatives -- especially the eldest -- and to their friends, their
neighbors, their co-workers, and African Americans who are total strangers to
them.
Please fill out as many forms as possible online because that will
save us so much data entry work.
THE ONLINE FORM and PAPER FORM
ARE BEING DESIGNED.
If you would like to be emailed when the form has been completed, please send an email to:
II. POST-EMANCIPATION
Planning support programs,
programs that should have been established
by federal and state governments before and after 1865
and maintained
until effective results had been obtained
In 1876, there
was a presidential campaign between the candidates Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, and Samuel J. Tilden,
a Democratic. Both the Democrats and the Republicans claimed victory in the Electoral
College. Tilden won the popular vote, which was challenged in some southern states,
including Florida.
Because of the heated arguments and charges by both parties, a commission was
formed to settle the matter. In January of 1877, legislation referred to
as the "Electoral Count Bill" was presented to the Congress in order
to decide which of the candidates would win the Presidency.
Under the rules of this bill, seven Democrats and eight Republicans comprised
the commission that would settle
the dispute, which was resolved according to
party lines, with the Republicans being in the majority.
The angered Democrats threatened to block any decision that was made by the commission until after
the date scheduled to be Inauguration Day. The threat left open
the possibility of America having no President for a period of time.
Thus, this threat forced each of the parties
to discuss the situation and to create a compromise. The Democrats gave up
Tilden's claims on the Office of President in exchange for the removal of
Federal troops from all of the southern states, which is what the Republicans
wanted.
President Hayes withdrew the
Federal troops from the South as soon as he took office, thus ending the era
of Reconstruction before its effects could begin to take shape. The newly
freed slaves, as well as the blacks who had never been slaves, were then at
the mercy of the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups and individuals.
They suffered widespread injustices without Federal protection.
The freedom and other rights provided by the Emancipation Proclamation, the
U.S. Constitution's 14th and 15th Amendments, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875
were, for all real purposes, voided with the compromise.
Racism
grew rampant. Jim Crow laws and racist organizations flourished without
restraint. To make matters even more searing, the United States Supreme
Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. Upon
that burden to blacks was placed the Court's decision that separate but equal
treatment of citizens of different races was constitutional, which was
determined during the
1896 case of Plessy versus Ferguson.
The rights of Blacks were reduced to virtually nothing.
Institutionalized racism, hate groups, and legal discrimination deprived them of their right
to vote and other rights taken for granted by America's other citizens during
that time. The effects are still with us today.
Our aim at the American Slaves Foundation is to begin the process all over
again and to correct as many of the vestiges of slavery as possible. We
know that the effects of hundreds of years of slavery on every American
citizen from then until now cannot be corrected by any one program. We know that there
are decades of work to do and that the current volunteers will not be alive to
see the completion. But here is where we begin.
III. EDUCATION FOR ALL
a. The Excel Program
(Americans helping Americans of all ages
to advance within our current educational system)
b. American Social Education
(Teaching about all of the cultures in
America)
c. Entrepreneurial Programs
(Teaching self-reliance)
IV. FREE DNA TESTING
To learn the countries of origin to enhance the bonds of lineage
V. AMERICAN SLAVES MEMORIAL
Distant project
VI. ARCHIVES FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
See the beginnings of our efforts.
VII. SERVING OUR CURRENT ELDERS
Planning stage underway
VIII. AMERICAN UNITY
When we reach this project, the American Slaves Foundation
will have completed its missions, will cease to exist, and will become the
American Unity Foundation.
Current Project
150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
National dissemination of the words of the formerly enslaved
