"We are African in origin and American in birth"
About this Quote
Fortune’s line is a tightrope walk across the fault line of American identity: a refusal to choose between ancestry and citizenship when the country is demanding you pick one or be erased. “African in origin” names a history the United States tried to reduce to property records and caricature; “American in birth” asserts a claim the nation routinely dodged with legal tricks, vigilante terror, and social exclusion. The sentence is built like a ledger entry, balanced and factual, because Fortune is arguing with a culture that pretends Black belonging is up for debate. He answers with paperwork-level certainty.
The intent is strategic. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black public life was being squeezed by Jim Crow, disfranchisement, and the Supreme Court’s sanctioning of segregation. Fortune, a journalist and civil-rights organizer, writes into that pressure with a formulation that disarms two common traps: the demand to “assimilate” by disowning Africa, and the nativist insinuation that Black Americans are perpetual outsiders. He gives both halves their due, then stitches them together with a simple “and.”
Subtext: don’t mistake hyphenation for half-ness. The phrase anticipates modern debates over diasporic identity by insisting that origin is not an obstacle to nationality. It’s also a quiet indictment: if Black people are American by birth, then the problem isn’t belonging; it’s the country’s refusal to honor its own premises.
The intent is strategic. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black public life was being squeezed by Jim Crow, disfranchisement, and the Supreme Court’s sanctioning of segregation. Fortune, a journalist and civil-rights organizer, writes into that pressure with a formulation that disarms two common traps: the demand to “assimilate” by disowning Africa, and the nativist insinuation that Black Americans are perpetual outsiders. He gives both halves their due, then stitches them together with a simple “and.”
Subtext: don’t mistake hyphenation for half-ness. The phrase anticipates modern debates over diasporic identity by insisting that origin is not an obstacle to nationality. It’s also a quiet indictment: if Black people are American by birth, then the problem isn’t belonging; it’s the country’s refusal to honor its own premises.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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