The American Descendants of Slavery Advocacy Foundation (ADOS AF) feels the woefully familiar churn of emotions —sorrow, rage, disgust and dismay—in the wake of Saturday’s anti- Black massacre in Buffalo, New York. To the victims’ families we extend our most profound condolences, and alongside them we mourn all that which in a horrific instant was stolen from their lives.

Once again an act of anti-Black domestic terrorism punctuates our people’s experience in America. These remain a feature of our national life, repudiating the basic personhood of every relation in our community. Buffalo is not an aberration; it is simply the latest community to be preyed upon by that malevolence which white America has allowed to fester within itself. Now, that malevolence has claimed more of our fathers, more of our sons, more of our wives, daughters and grandparents.

It is impossible not to see the murderer’s message, “Here’s your reparations,” which adorned the rifle used in the slaughtering of innocent life this past weekend, as a direct response to this moment that the #ADOS movement has created. It is a moment of unprecedented demand for redress for the repeated depredations and violence that ADOS have been made to endure here in America for centuries. As with all terrorism, the message is meant to subdue our efforts, to cow us into docility and banish from our heads the belief that we can or should pursue our just and needful restitution from the federal government of the United States.

However, our will in this regard will not be tamped down by the declarations and actions of hellhounds. We will not moderate our course of action, and our advocacy will only become amplified in response.

The country in which we have lived for over 400 years has exhausted its ability to account for these unspeakable acts of anti-Black terrorism. It has plumbed the depths of its empathy, and yet here we are. And so now is the time to intensify the demand that our elected officials commit to using the totality of the legislative apparatus to rectify the ongoing failure to guarantee us full legal, political, and social equality. The ADOS AF’s resolve and devotion to that end is redoubled in the aftermath of the tragedy in Buffalo, and we encourage all who share our sense of urgency and passion to wp-signup.php us in our cause of reparations and a transformational Black agenda.