Land and Labor Acknowledgement

We acknowledge the legacy of the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of Native Indigenous Peoples from which they were violently dispossessed. We recognized the systemic erasure of their complex and unique histories and cultures. We are located on the unceded land of the Accohannock Indian Tribe, the Assateague People's Tribe, the Choptico Band of Indians, the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians, the Pocomoke Indian Nation. With gratitude, apology, and grief, we honor the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and extend our gratitude for their stewardship of this land.

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We further recognize the role of land dispossession in expanding slavery across North America. We acknowledge the heritage of the African and Caribbean diaspora and the violent reality of slavery and forced, exploited labor of Black and Brown bodies that built this area. We recognize that economic growth and development throughout history and across time has been made possible by the labor of enslaved people on which this country was built, with little to no recognition. We acknowledge the profound injustices and suffering caused by the horror of transatlantic trade, chattel slavery, convict leasing, Jim Crow laws, dehumanization, the centuries of economic disinvestment, police violence, and lack of voting representation in Congress, that permeates our existence. We must acknowledge the reverberation of that violence throughout the generations and the resulting impact that can still be felt and witnessed today.