What does it mean to celebrate America’s 250th birthday when Black people had already been fighting for freedom on this land for 250 years before 1776?

That is where I begin.

In “America’s Birth, Our Nation,” the first installment of America at 250: A Retrospective in Blackness, I am looking at the American founding through the history that too often gets pushed to the margins—Black resistance, Black labor, Black claims to freedom, and the contradictions embedded in the nation from its birth.

Because before we celebrate, we have to remember.

And before we tell the story of America, we have to tell the whole story.

Read “America’s Birth, Our Nation” on my Substack.

Come sit with me. We have some history to talk about.