Listen to nurse Erachie Brown – born in Jamaica, Queens, New York – who is the descendant of a Foundational Black American share about her ancestry: her mother was from South Carolina and her family protected their land from the KKK; her father was from Jamaica, West Indies and he migrated to New York City where he met Erachie’s mom at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem.

On being a Foundational Black American:

“We are called Foundational Black Americans, because we are the descendants of the African slaves who were brought here, early in the 1600s, and Africans had been here even before then. So, we are the true indigenous people. We have a culture, because we're ripped from the homeland and brought to this country and many other places in the Caribbean and across the world, and stripped of our identity, our culture ...