As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, there is a group of people who were indispensable to its birth, growth and survival. But they have received almost no attention during this historic celebration. However, there was nothing that early Americans paid more attention to or paid more money for than their unpaid labor force, people commonly referred to as slaves.
According to 131 of the nation’s most prominent Ph.D. historians, those first 12 generations of Black people in America were the indispensable factor in the U.S. becoming the most successful nation in modern history.
Black unpaid laborers began building the physical and economic foundation of what would become the United States of America almost a century before any of the Founding Fathers were born. For 2½ centuries, they cleared forests, cultivated fields, built roads, constructed cities and created extraordinary wealth that fueled America’s meteoric rise.
By 1860, Americans had invested more money in unpaid laborers than in anything else. Black people represented the nation’s largest capital investment. Their unpaid labor was the engine that powered the young nation’s economy, making their contribution impossible to separate from America’s growth and prosperity.
Their collective contribution extended far beyond economics.
Black soldiers were needed in the Revolutionary War to help the nation win its independence. Black people were the determining factor in the location of our nation’s capital. The unpaid labor system was the cause of the Civil War, the deadliest conflict in American history. During that war, 180,000 Black soldiers fought to help preserve the U.S. and end slavery. The first 12 generations of Black people in America stand alone in American history for the magnitude of their collective contribution to the success of the United States.
People from all over the world have immigrated here to take advantage of the opportunities that are available in America. Those opportunities exist because of the first 12 generations of Black people in America. The question is not whether we honor these indispensable contributors but how should we honor them.
The time that has elapsed does not diminish the magnitude or importance of their contribution. If anything, it increases our responsibility to acknowledge that contribution.
The 10 million forgotten, nameless, faceless souls who were bought, sold and forced to toil for 250 years building America’s prosperity must not be forgotten. Those 10 million Black people had their humanity and dignity attacked. They were robbed of their labor, their liberty and even their children.
There is nothing we can do about the past. But it would be another grave injustice to rob them of the credit that is due them for their indispensable role in America’s birth, growth and survival. It is especially important that we celebrate them while celebrating America’s anniversary.
On this 250th anniversary, let’s celebrate by acknowledging that Black folks played a major role in building America. And let us abolish the 350-year-old lie that Black people are inferior. A lie that was legalized by the American government to justify slavery. That government-endorsed lie continues to justify attacks on Black people (i.e., voting rights and Black history) today. If that false narrative survives, America cannot live up to its founding ideals.
We cannot truly proclaim that “all men are created equal” and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness until we acknowledge the truth about those who helped build this nation and abolish the lie that denied their humanity.
The first 12 generations of Black people in America deserve to be remembered — not as a footnote, but as indispensable builders of the United States of America.
Mathew Foggy Jr. is a St. Louis-based civil rights activist, founder and CEO of Skate King, creator of the Unpaid Labor Project and author of “America’s MVP,” a book honoring the historical contributions of Black Americans.