Digital creator Shanell R. Oliver has highlighted the shared ancestral roots connecting African-descended communities across the Americas in a powerful Facebook video.
Oliver, in a detailed video, traced the historical and cultural ties linking African Americans, Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Caribbeans, and other diaspora communities to the same West and Central African regions.
“Even after European invaders scattered our ancestors across the world, our cultures still mirror each other,” Oliver wrote. “The rhythms, the stories, the values. We are one people living in many places, linked by history and heritage.”
In her video, Oliver explained the scale of the Atlantic slave trade, noting that over 12.5 million Africans were trafficked across the Atlantic, with more than 90% originating from regions including the Congo Kingdom, Akan States, Yoruba and Dahomey lands, the Igbo heartlands, and Senegambia.
The cultural imprint of these homelands, she explained, is evident across food, music, spirituality, and resistance movements. For example, Afro-Brazilian populations trace much of their ancestry to Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, and Benin, while Caribbean communities, from Haiti to Jamaica and Barbados, show strong connections to Akan, Igbo, and Yoruba roots. African Americans also overwhelmingly trace ancestry to Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, and Angola.
“Our spiritual systems prove it. Our drum patterns prove it. Our foods, our dances, our languages, our resistance movements—they all mirror each other because we come from one cultural foundation,” Oliver said.
Oliver’s message is being celebrated as a powerful reminder of unity within the African diaspora.
She delivers an apt message that acknowledges the resilience and continuity of African identity despite centuries of displacement and oppression.
She concluded in her video: “We’re not different kinds of black. We are one African people living in different places, and we are finally remembering that.”
This recognition of shared ancestry comes at a time when cultural and historical education about African roots is increasingly influencing identity and solidarity movements throughout the Americas.
Oliver’s video has sparked conversations among communities in Chicago, Detroit, Salvador, Kingston, Port of Spain, Havana, and New Orleans—underscoring that, centuries later, the memory of African homelands continues to thrive.
