Some Africans probably came before Christopher Columbus. These 22 or 23 Africans, including Angela, who arrived this week 400 years ago were not the first to land in North America. Kendi: There is no middle ground on reparations African Americans have every reason to be hopeful and every reason to be hopeless on this 400th anniversary of our birth in this land. He was, definitely, the beginning of all that makes her hopeless, the eclipse essential to racism. She was, perhaps, the beginning of hope, the North Star essential to anti-racism.

Instead of David and Goliath, African America is the story of the petite Angela hopefully and hopelessly fighting off the giant John from 1619 to 2019 for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. John was the original embodiment of elite white male power, of the democracy of racists, of its 400-year struggle to survive, to be free of anti-racism. Angela was the original embodiment of enslavement, of survival, of the 400-year African American struggle to survive, to be free of racism. In 1619, this black woman and white man-what they embody-arrived months apart in 12-year-old Virginia, the first of the 13 British colonies that became the United States.

His name was John, the first known antiblack racist in colonial America. Her name was Angela, one of the first known Africans in British North America. Editor’s Note: We’ve gathered dozens of the most important pieces from our archives on race and racism in America.

1619 by James Horn