Ollie Marshall-Rico, raised as one of sixteen children in Springfield, Arkansas, is a retired educator from the Newark Public School System. As a former VISTA volunteer, she helped create Newark’s first Rent Control Bill. A lifetime NAACP member and community activist, she believes the church and community must remain strongly connected. She currently lives on the East Coast with her husband.
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Ollie Marshall-Rico, the seventh of sixteen children, was raised in Springfield, Arkansas, in the small community of Union Chapel. She is a retired educator from the Newark Public School System, where she dedicated years to shaping young minds. As a former VISTA volunteer, she worked alongside others to help create Newark’s first Rent Control Bill, demonstrating her lifelong commitment to economic justice. A lifetime member of the NAACP and an active community activist, Marshall-Rico believes the church and community must remain deeply connected. She currently resides on the East Coast with her husband.
Courageous Cultured, & Resilience
Courageous, Cultured, & Resilience: Foundational Black Americans by Ollie Marshall-Rico is a powerful testimonial work that demands recognition and reparations for Foundational Black Americans—descendants of U.S. chattel slavery. Through raw poetic prose, the author delineates the FBA lineage from Black immigrants WHO have never confronted ancestral rape, lynching spectacles, erased matriarchs, and stolen labor. The book celebrates FBA-created culture—jazz, blues, gospel, gumbo, and resilience—while rejecting colonizer attitudes. Marshall-Rico insists only FBAs can speak their truth. Flawed yet fiercely necessary, this work is a moral weapon demanding unpaid wages built into America’s soil.
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Discover the untold journey of Foundational Black Americans. Explore raw truths of ancestral resilience, cultural triumphs, and unyielding courage. Witness poetry born from pain, strength forged in struggle, and a legacy that built America. Experience the music, the food, the blood, and the soil. Understand the call for recognition, respect, and reparations. Walk through generations of survival, love, and unbroken spirit.
Inside are firsthand poetic testimonies of Foundational Black Americans descending from American chattel slavery. The book confronts ancestral rape by enslavers, untraceable matriarchs, babies sold as punishment, and lynching victims whose body parts were placed in souvenir jars. It documents the Middle Passage, unpaid labor that built America, and the destruction of self-sufficient Black communities like Tulsa and Rosewood.
The book draws a clear line between FBAs and Black immigrants who came by choice, rejecting colonizer attitudes and the degrading term "Akata" (wild cat). It demands financial reparations as unpaid wages, not charity. It celebrates Black-created American culture—jazz, blues, gospel, rock, hip-hop, and gumbo—while warning against white erasure of FBA history and the rewriting of narratives.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
Foundational Black Americans are equipped to make their own decisions.
If they decide to utilize their funds to purchase homes, that is their choice.
A choice that was stolen when their ancestors were slaves.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
If FBAs decide to utilize their funds for a trade rather than a college education, that is their choice.
The enslaver had forbidden slaves to learn how to read or write.
FBAs are wise enough to open gateways of learning for their loved ones.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
FBA’s funds should be issued to the ancestors who were tied to the chattel slavery system.
Community Development programs serve the community at large, including Black and white immigrants.
FBAs do not need community development programs to be empowered.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
Why should debt relief programs be associated with FBAs?
Reparation is paid to FBAs based upon debt due.
FBAs should receive funds due and owed, whether they are rich or poor.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
Once funds are issued, FBAs can come together to build business.
Hopefully, those businesses will not be destroyed like Rosewood or Wall Street.
Individuals whose ancestors have not experienced chattel slavery are not connected to reparations as FBAs.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
FBAs’ systemic disadvantages are connected directly to slavery and its aftermath.
Enslaved labor transformed America into a major global economic power.
Yet, FBAs who had produced that wealth were denied freedom, education, and property ownership.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
Cotton, tobacco, rice, railroad construction, and insurance industries danced with richness while FBAs lived less than humanely.
Whites enriched their children through this land, homeownership, family business, and investment.
They created Jim Crow laws, sharecropping, segregation, and redlining to prevent Blacks from moving forward after 1865.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
From the slave, Crispus Attucks, to the current FBAs, their loyalty has viewed America as their country.
FBAs had to establish a unique style of living, including their culture.
FBA’s identity buried, enslaved name carries, broken family ties, and impounded by laws relegating them to a subhuman position.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
America wishes to deny FBAs reparation with general programs put into place for all inhabitants within America.
Debt relief and community development programs serve the entire population of America.
FBAs were enslaved with the chattel slave system, not the entire population of America; therefore, reparations should be provided to FBAs.
Reparation is defined as direct financial payments.
Current whites benefit the riches passed on from their ancestors, but they feel free of obligations to pay reparations to those FBAs who created that wealth.
Their topical comment is “Why should I pay reparations when my ancestors enslaved Blacks, not me?”
Whites are enriched through the wealth of Blacks’ enslavement; therefore, America is indebted to FBAs.
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Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast
A necessary, unflinching testimony. This book shattered my understanding of Black American history. Marshall-Rico refuses to be polite, and that's her power. Every FBA should read this, and every Black immigrant must read this. The raw honesty about ancestral rape and stolen matriarchs left me in tears. Finally, someone speaking our specific truth.
Some poems repeat the same ideas, but maybe that's the point—when will America finally listen? The distinction between FBAs and Black immigrants is uncomfortable but necessary. The "Akata" section broke my heart. I will never forget the image of souvenir jars. This book belongs in every Black studies course.
Finally, someone who understands our specific journey. The author's courage to name the pain of untraceable matriarchs and ancestral rape while also lifting up our triumphs is extraordinary. I laughed, I cried, and I felt truly seen. A gift to the FBA community and healing in every word.
For more than four centuries, the labor of enslaved Black Americans helped build the economic foundation of the United States. From agriculture and infrastructure to finance and industry, generations of unpaid labor created…
In conversations about race, culture, ancestry, and identity in the United States, terms like Foundational Black American (FBA), African American, and Black immigrant are often used interchangeably. However, these identities can represent different historical backgrounds, cultural experiences,…
Chattel slavery left one of the most complex and emotionally significant challenges in genealogical research: the matrilineal gap. For many descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States—often studied within Foundational Black American…
