ABOUT THE DESCENDANTS FORUM

The Descendants Forum is a congress of descendant-led organizations committed to collective memory, shared governance, and the ethical stewardship of history. Rooted in the knowledge, leadership, and lived experience of descendants of enslaved ancestors, the Forum provides a space for coordination, dialogue, and collective action across communities shaped by enslavement, displacement, and historical injustice.

The Forum is not a single institution or authority. It is a shared table—one built on respect, reciprocity, and long memory. It exists to:

  • Convene descendant-led organizations across regions, histories, and traditions

  • Strengthen collaboration without erasing local autonomy or specificity

  • Share models for ethical research, public history, reparative practice, and community governance, and

  • Support collective voice and mutual accountability in national and international conversations about memory, justice, and repair.

  • Raise and disseminate funding to descendant-led organizations.

The work of the Descendants Forum is guided by five core principles:

  1. Descendant Leadership
    Decisions about descendant histories, data, memory, and representation must be led by descendants themselves.

  2. Collective Stewardship
    History is not owned—it is held in trust for past, present, and future generations.

  3. Plurality and Difference
    The Forum honors the diversity of descendant experiences while creating space for shared purpose.

  4. Transparency and Care
    Ethical practice requires openness, consent, and accountability—to communities and to one another.

  5. Future-Facing Memory
    Remembering the past is inseparable from shaping more just futures.

Through convenings, working groups, shared statements, and collaborative initiatives, the Descendants Forum supports:

  • Cross-organizational dialogue and strategy

  • Knowledge exchange and capacity-building

  • Collective responses to public, academic, and policy initiatives

  • Relationships rooted in trust rather than extraction

The Forum grows through participation. Its agenda is shaped by its members.

The Descendants Forum is intentionally unfinished. Like memory itself, it remains open—welcoming new voices, new generations, and new forms of collaboration. We gather not to close the record, but to keep it alive.

The Descendants Forum is a joint initiative of the Clotilda Descendants Association (CDA) and Kinfolkology™. The CDA and Kinfolkology™ are proud to be 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.