Similarities Between the Black Holocaust and Other Holocausts

The four hundred-year history of captured Africans and their descendants shares many features with the Holocaust experiences of European Jews – and the victims of other mass atrocities.

These include:

Dehumanization and vilification

Forced marches and migrations

Slave (forced, unpaid) labor

Stolen property

Mass incarceration

Torture

Medical experimentation

Discrimination by law and custom

Ethnic cleansing (race riots)

Lynchings and other forms of terrorism

Mass murder

Long-lasting psychological effects (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) on survivors – and their descendants.

How ABHM Got Its Name – and Why

Dr. James Cameron founded this museum about the Black Holocaust in America after visiting Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Israel. He saw the many similarities between the experiences of the Jewish people and African Americans.

He also admired how Jewish people value their history. To prevent atrocities like the Shoah (Nazi Holocaust) from happening again, they teach their children and other groups about it. Dr. Cameron saw how this truth-telling gave Jewish communities strength and hope and wanted the same for African American communities.

Dr. Cameron wanted museum visitors to understand this: The Black Holocaust in America began hundreds of years ago, but its effects – and sadly many of its practices – continue in our country today.2 Tragically, this prevents our nation from living up to the ideals in its founding documents, which promised “liberty and justice for all.” Our founder dreamed of our country as “one single and sacred nationality.” He hoped his museum would help all Americans to honestly acknowledge our past in order to heal our future.

There at the Start

The Black Holocaust in America began in the 1600s in the first settlements in Virginia. That colony passed laws making black people – and only black people – slaves for life.

Slavery and segregation have since become illegal, but the Black Holocaust has had far-reaching effects on our entire society and on generations of our citizens – black and nonblack.