Why Urban Indians, Freedmen, and ADOS Are Arguing About the Wrong Enemy : The Same Dog Bit Us All
- Ishmael Bey
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
How the National Urban League Became a Broker of Identity and Why Our Communities Must Stop Fighting Each Other
For decades, some of the most intense conflicts among Black, Indigenous, and Freedmen-descended communities in the United States have been framed as internal disputes: Who is “really” Indigenous? Who qualifies as Black? Who deserves recognition, resources, or reparative justice?
But what if these conflicts are not organic at all?
What if the same institutional actor has repeatedly positioned itself as the official voice for all melanated people while quietly reshaping identities, suppressing distinctions, and routing money in ways that benefit intermediaries rather than communities?
This article argues that many of today’s fractures trace back to a single, recurring institutional pattern, most clearly embodied by the National Urban League.
Not because every staffer was malicious.
Not because every program was harmful.
But because authority without consent, combined with funding incentives, produces predictable damage.
On August 4, 1966, newspapers reported that the National Urban League delegates in Philadelphia debated a proposed resolution from the Washington Urban League.
The Gettysburg Times broke the truth plainly:
“…after substitution of ‘indigenous’ for ‘Negro’ in the text.” — Gettysburg Times, Aug 4, 1966, p.27
A Pattern, Not an Accident
Let’s start with what the historical record now shows.
1. Urban Indians were erased administratively
In the 1950s–1960s, newspapers, census materials, and urban policy discussions repeatedly used terms like:
Indigenous citizens
Indigenous leadership in the ghetto
Indigenous people in urban centers
These were not metaphors. They referred to tribally descended people displaced into cities by allotment, termination, Jim Crow, and labor migration.
At the 1966 National Urban League Convention in Philadelphia, internal debates reveal something crucial:
The word “Indigenous” was deliberately removed or replaced with “Negro”
Delegates objected, calling the language “weasel-worded”
Leadership acknowledged the substitution publicly
This was not mandated by law. It was an organizational decision.
The result: Urban Indigenous peoples were absorbed into a racial category that eliminated treaty standing, political status, and group visibility while unlocking federal and foundation funding streams.
That is not advocacy.
That is identity brokerage.
*********************************************************************************
The Urban League told the government to reject FBA, ADOS and FREEDMEN proposals and to include ALL IMMIGRANTS as Black so that the League can get the Federal Money and control anybody claiming to be Black and the OMB agreed
National Urban League and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation Response to U.S. Office of Management and Budget Initial Proposal for Updating OMB's Race and Ethnicity Standards
2. The same mechanism is being replayed today
Fast-forward to the present.
The Urban League now:
Engages directly with OMB
Opposes disaggregated categories
Pushes for broad racial consolidation under “Black/African American”
Positions itself as the authoritative representative of all Black-identified populations
This has real consequences for:
American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS)
Foundational Black Americans (FBA)
Freedmen-descended populations
Urban Indians and detribalized Indigenous peoples
Different histories.
Different harms.
Same institutional pressure: collapse distinction for administrative convenience and funding continuity.
This Is Why We’re Fighting Each Other
Here’s the hard truth most people don’t want to say out loud:
Our communities are arguing because an intermediary trained us to compete for recognition inside a system it controls.
When:
Indigenous identity is flattened into race
Lineage claims are dismissed as “divisive”
Freedmen history is treated as inconvenient
ADOS/FBA frameworks are labeled threats
…it creates horizontal conflict.
Meanwhile, the institution remains:
Funded
Credentialed
Invited to government tables
Untouched by accountability
That’s not coincidence. That’s structure.
Follow the Incentives
The Urban League’s role has long been intertwined with:
Federal War on Poverty programs
Foundation funding (including the Ford Foundation)
Census and statistical frameworks
Advisory positions without electoral consent
None of this requires conspiracy.
It only requires one thing:
Money flows more easily when populations are simplified.
But people are not spreadsheets.
“The Same Dog Bit You and Bit Me”
Urban Indians were told:
“You’re just Negro now.”
Freedmen descendants were told:
“Your specific history complicates things.”
ADOS and FBA communities are told:
“Lineage claims divide Black unity.”
Different decades. Same outcome.
Identity erased. Voice redirected. Resources brokered.
So instead of attacking each other online often using language shaped by the very institutions that harmed us we need to recognize a shared reality:
The same dog bit you and bit me.
And the dog wasn’t your cousin on Twitter.
It was an organization acting as an unaccountable gatekeeper.
What Unity Actually Looks Like
Unity does not mean sameness.
It means:
Urban Indians reclaiming political identity
ADOS/FBA communities asserting lineage-based claims
Freedmen descendants demanding treaty and citizenship clarity
Mutual respect for differences, not forced mergers
And it means withdrawing blind trust from any organization that claims to speak for everyone without consent.
A Way Forward
Name the pattern — publicly, calmly, with documentation
Reject proxy representation without accountability
Demand disaggregation, not erasure
Build cross-community alliances based on shared harms, not identical labels
Stop fighting sideways
We do not need to agree on everything to agree on this:
No institution gets to erase one people to “help” another.
Final Word
This isn’t about hatred. It’s about clarity.
Once we identify the common mischief-maker, we can stop mistaking each other for the enemy and start moving in the right direction together.
🌳 GRAPH TREE: ONE ROOT → TWO ADMINISTRATIVE ERASURES
SPLIT POINT: 1865 (End of the Civil War)
🔴 RED BRANCH (INDIGENOUS) 🔵 BLUE BRANCH (FREEDMEN)
Indigenous Citizens Freedmen / ADOS / FBA
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ PRE-1865: ORIGINAL PEOPLES │
│ • Indigenous nations │
│ • Enslaved Africans │
│ • Free People of Color │
│ STATUS: POLITICAL / TREATY │
│ IDENTITY ≠ RACE │
└──────────────┬──────────────┘
│
│ 1865
│ END OF CIVIL WAR
│ 13th Amendment
│
┌────────────────────┴────────────────────┐
│ │
🔴 RED BRANCH (INDIGENOUS) 🔵 BLUE BRANCH (FREEDMEN)
**Indigenous Citizens** **Freedmen / ADOS / FBA**
🔴 RED BRANCH — INDIGENOUS ERASURE PATH
Indigenous Citizens (Pre-1865)
│
├─ Tribal nations, local Indians, Indigenous Negroes
│
├─ Post-1865 State Control of Records
│ • Birth certificates
│ • Census clerks
│ • Vital statistics offices
│
├─ 1880s–1930s
│ • “Mulatto,” “Colored,” “Free People of Color”
│ • Indigenous identity blurred
│
├─ 1940s–1960s
│ • Administrative reclassification
│ • Louisiana (Naomi Drake)
│ • Virginia (Plecker legacy)
│
├─ 1966
│ • Urban League replaces “Indigenous” → “Negro”
│ • War on Poverty funding framework
│
└─ OUTCOME:
❌ No treaty recognition
❌ No census visibility
❌ Indigenous peoples absorbed into “Negro”
Result:
🧨 Paper genocide via racial substitution
🧨 Erasure without legislation
🔵 BLUE BRANCH — FREEDMEN / ADOS ERASURE PATH
Freedmen (Post-1865)
│
├─ Treaty-recognized populations
│ • Freedmen rolls
│ • Land claims
│ • Citizenship disputes
│
├─ Late 1800s–Early 1900s
│ • Gradual racial consolidation
│ • “Negro” becomes umbrella
│
├─ 1960s Civil Rights Era
│ • Race replaces lineage
│ • “Black” becomes primary category
│
├─ Post-1964
│ • Lineage claims labeled “divisive”
│ • Institutions speak “on behalf” of all Blacks
│
├─ 2000s–Present
│ • ADOS / FBA emerge
│ • Requests for specificity resisted
│
└─ 2023
• Urban League petitions OMB
• Blocks disaggregated Black categories
Result:
🧨 Lineage erased through statistical aggregation
🧨 Treaty and reparative claims stalled
**An Open Letter from Urban Indians
to Our Kindred Communities Seeking Justice and Truth**
To our relatives and counterparts among:
American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS)
Foundational Black Americans (FBA)
Freedmen-descended populations
And all communities harmed by historical misclassification and administrative erasure
We write this letter in the spirit of clarity, respect, and responsibility to future generations.
For too long, our communities have been encouraged sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly to view one another as competitors for recognition, resources, or legitimacy. We have been told that our histories are incompatible, that our claims weaken one another, or that unity requires silence about difference.
The historical record now shows something else.
Across decades, different peoples Indigenous citizens displaced into cities, Freedmen seeking treaty and citizenship recognition, descendants of slavery demanding lineage-based justice have encountered the same institutional pattern: our identities flattened, our distinctions discouraged, and our political claims redirected through proxy organizations that spoke about us rather than with us.
The consequences of this pattern have been profound:
Indigenous Urban communities erased from policy and census visibility
Freedmen and lineage-based claims stalled or dismissed as “divisive”
Descendants of slavery forced into generic racial categories that cannot carry the full weight of historical harm
Communities turned against one another while institutions remained unaccountable
We do not write to assign blame to our fellow communities. We write to interrupt a cycle that has benefited intermediaries while leaving our people fragmented.
A Shared Recognition
We acknowledge openly that:
Our histories are not identical
Our legal claims are not the same
Our paths to justice may require different remedies
But we also recognize this shared truth:
None of our communities consented to having their identities erased, merged, or redefined for administrative convenience or funding efficiency.
That harm did not originate with us. And it cannot be repaired by fighting each other.
An Invitation Forward
In that spirit, we extend a public invitation to engage in structured, good-faith dialogue focused not on social media conflict, but on collective understanding and solutions.
We propose:
Public forums to discuss historical misclassification and its present-day impacts
Workshops that bring together scholars, community elders, legal advocates, and organizers from our respective groups
Roundtable discussions that allow each community to articulate its history, claims, and aspirations without being subsumed or dismissed
Educational initiatives aimed at ensuring our youth inherit truth rather than confusion
These conversations should be:
Transparent
Moderated
Historically grounded
Oriented toward repair, not rivalry
Our Commitment
As Urban Indians, we commit to:
Speaking honestly about our own erasure
Respecting the distinct histories of ADOS, FBA, and Freedmen-descended peoples
Rejecting proxy representation that claims authority without consent
Working toward models of cooperation that honor difference rather than erase it
We believe that when communities recognize the shared mechanisms that harmed them, they can stop fighting over symptoms and begin addressing causes.
For the Generations Coming After Us
This letter is not only about the past. It is about whether our children inherit:
fractured narratives
borrowed identities
and unresolved harm
or whether they inherit:
clarity
mutual respect
and the tools to build something better than what was handed to us.
We extend this invitation publicly and in good faith.
Let us meet. Let us speak. Let us disagree with integrity. And let us ensure that no future generation has to rediscover too late that we were divided by systems that never intended to serve us.
Respectfully,
Urban Indian Communities
and Advocates for Indigenous Continuity and Truth
FIRST TRIBE
