10/28/2025
Identify
A Good Name Is Better Than Gold
Reclaiming Our Name. Restoring Our Power
A Good Name Is Better Than Gold
Reclaiming Our Name. Restoring Our Power
Family, today we speak with one voice, proud and unshaken. We speak as Afrodescendants. This name is not one handed to us by others—it is one that we, ourselves, defined, claimed, and are now raising as our banner of unity and empowerment. The origins of this identity are rooted in truth and sacrifice. For centuries, we have been labeled by others—enslaved, colored, Negro, minority—names that never captured who we are as a people. But in the late 20th century, leaders like Silis Muhammad and Harriet AbuBakr stepped forward to speak a new truth before the United Nations and our communities across the world. They gave definition to this name, Afrodescendant, so that we might stand unified and recognized as one people.
You may be thinking,” What is an Afrodescendant?” The definition makes it plain:
We are the descendants of people of chattel slavery who:
1- Were forcibly dispossessed of their homeland, Africa;
2- Were transported to the Americas and diaspora for the purpose of enslavement;
3- Were subjected to slavery;
4- Were subjected to forced mixed breeding and r**e;
5- Having experienced, through force, the loss of mother tongue, culture, and religion;
6- Have experienced racial discrimination due to lost ties or partial lost ties to our original identity.
This is who we are, and this is why we must never let go of this name.
When Silis Muhammad and Harriet AbuBakr spoke these words, they gifted us more than a label. They gave us a tool of empowerment. They gave us an identity that tells the truth of our past and shines a light toward our future. By naming ourselves Afrodescendants, we affirm that we are not accidental minorities scattered in nations—we are a people, united by a shared origin and a shared struggle.
In 2001, this definition echoed across the halls of Durban, South Africa, at the World Conference Against Racism, where Afrodescendants were officially recognized. But recognition was never the endpoint—it was the beginning of a global responsibility. A responsibility to stand together politically, socially, and culturally to ensure that our next generations inherit strength instead of silence, justice instead of inequality, reparations instead of continued theft.
The Afrodescendant Identity Empowerment Movement is about more than just words—it is about reclaiming our fractured identity and using it as fuel for liberation. It is about telling our children that they are not rootless, that their story did not begin in chains, but stretches back to Africa—the source of our dignity and genius.
So let us take this name seriously. Let us hold it as both shield and sword. Shield, because it protects us from invisibility. Sword, because it gives us power to fight for justice, equity, and reparations. Together, under this identity, we are unstoppable. Together, we break the silos that once kept us divided by language, religion, or border. Together, as
Afrodescendants, we will rise—out of history’s shadows and into history’s leadership.
