How Economic Freedom, Melanin Power, Ancestral Intelligence, and Spiritual Sovereignty Break the Chains of Modern Colonization
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The African Liberation Blackprint
How Economic Freedom, Melanin Power, Ancestral Intelligence, and Spiritual Sovereignty Break the Chains of Modern Colonization
Anthony Browder
Feb 16, 2025
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In 1989 I published
From The Browder File: 22 Essays on the African American Experience.
Since that book was published:
- My faith has been tested
- My understanding has deepened
- And my commitment to the African spirit within me is now stronger than ever before.
The Browder File has a liberating effect on those who read it.
But the most common questions I was asked by my readers were:
And
- How do I use this information?”
So in 1996 I published
Survival Strategies for Africans in America: 13 Steps to Freedom and provided additional insights that will lead to the stated goal:
Freedom
The 13 Steps to Freedom contain 3 categories that relate to the liberation of the African Mind, Body and Spirit.
The 13 Steps to Freedom
Free Your African Mind
1. Understand that Racism and white supremacy are the most persistent problems confronting Africans in America
2. Become aware of the power of the media
3. Perceptions proceeds being - you are who you believe you are
4. Information is power, but the power is nothing without control
5. Empower your mind - See the world through africanized eyes
Free Your African Body
6. Become aware of the uniqueness of your African body
7. Develop cultural and holistic approaches to health
8. Become aware of your mind-body relationships
9. Familiarize yourself with the mysteries of melanin
Free Your African Spirit
10. Learn to interpret religious imagery
11. Honor the memory of your ancestors
12. Prepare yourself for war and peace
13. Learn how to live in the new America
When all 13 steps are mastered and linked, they form a practical and symbolic stairway to Freedom.
What is Freedom?
The Practical Definition:
“Exemption or liberation from control of some person or arbitrary power”.
The Symbolic Definition:
Free or unrestricted use of the
dome - the head or mind.
Freedom can be achieved if you are willing to take conscious and deliberate steps towards it.
If you are ready, let the journey begin.
In this newsletter we will cover four fundamental truths that form the blackprint for our complete liberation:
- Economic freedom
- Melanin power
- Ancestral intelligence
- And Spiritual sovereignty
Let's get into it.
My Path to Economic Freedom
I've been self-employed for 46 years
I was born in Chicago to a 16-year-old mother from a family that was part of the Great Migration from rural Alabama to the urban North. I grew up in a house with my Mom, my 6 aunties, uncle, and my grandparents.
In that house, I witnessed something that would change the course of my life:
I saw my grandfather struggle to raise a family of seven children, and now one grandchild, in the same house.
He was working for sub-minimum wage. He was treated so poorly on the job and he took his frustrations out on his wife and his children when he came home.
Growing up in that environment led to me making a promise to myself.
I promised that I would never work for anyone who didn't respect me as a Black man first.
The solution became clear - I needed to work for myself.
And for 46 years now, that's exactly what I've done.
Self-employment also taught me a fundamental truth:
When you're your own boss, your health becomes your greatest asset.
After listening to Dick Gregory and others, I began to understand the profound connection:
- What I put into my body determines my consciousness
- How clearly I could think determines my outcomes
- My ability to build wealth determines my future
- My capacity to serve my community is my most important objective
So I made another decision. And this October 12, 2025, marks a milestone I'm proud to share:
50 years without eating meat or chicken.
But it was about more than diet - it's about:
- Taking control of my destiny
- Understanding the relationship between mind and body
- Making conscious choices about what influences my life
- And building a foundation for independence and self mastery
This understanding of economic independence led me to a deeper truth about our biological power.
Melanin Power: The Chemical Key to Our Greatness
We carry within us a chemical that defines our very humanity, but most of us have never truly understood the power of melanin.
This remarkable substance is far more than just the pigment in our skin - it's present in every major organ of our body and holds secrets to our very essence as human beings.
Two brilliant psychiatrists led the way in my understanding melanin's significance:
- Dr. Frances Cress Welsing opened my eyes with "The Isis Papers"
- Dr. Richard King, in his groundbreaking work "Melanin: A Key to Freedom" showed me how this substance serves as a doorway to the ancestral realm
But these visionaries didn't work alone.
In the 1980s, the melanin conferences brought together:
- Historians examining our past
- Chemists studying melanin's structure
- Social scientists analyzing its cultural impact
- Medical researchers documenting its biological role
I had the privilege of hosting the second National Melanin Conference at Howard University in 1989.
There, Dr. Carol Barnes revealed a truth about the chemical nature of Melanin:
It is an alkaloid that bonds with other alkaloid substances like heroin, cocaine and marajuana.
So Black Folk who ingest drugs will
- Get higher faster
- Stay higher longer
- And we'll have a more difficult time dealing with the effects of these drugs
Because they literally bind to the melanin in our bodies.
This seemingly simple fact has profound implications for understanding:
- How our bodies process various substances
- Why traditional treatments often fail our people
- And the need for culturally-specific medical approaches
One of the participants in the 1989 conference was the dearly beloved sister, Dr Adelaide Sandford, who's on the New York State Board of Regents.
After hearing these lectures, she went to the next Board of Regents meeting where she presented some of this data.
She recommended that we take different approaches when dealing with black brothers and sisters who have addiction problems.
But for speaking the truth, she was almost run out of town. Time Magazine joined in the attack with headlines like “Melanin Madness”.
And it was the beginning of the assault against Afrocentric scholarship.
But by then the truth was already out.
Another important aspect that I got from my relationship to these Melanin scholars is that melanin gives us this thing that we call ‘Soul’:
- We talk differently
- We sing differently
- We dress differently
- We move differently
- We preach differently
So if we all know what we carry in our DNA, that would translate into us thinking, speaking and doing things differently, which will allow us to achieve this thing that we call freedom.
This chemical power of melanin in our bodies also connects directly to a force more powerful than any technology they've ever created.
Ancestral Intelligence: The Only AI that Matters
We have been socialized to believe that to call on your ancestors is pagan or devil worship.
But that's a thought planted in our minds by our oppressors to separate us from our real strength and power.
We are only alive because of the ancestors whose DNA we carry. And whose memory we also carry within our bodies.
Let me be clear: we are not merely surviving by chance.
We are thriving because of an intelligence far more profound than any silicon chip could ever replicate.
Every cell in your body carries the wisdom of countless generations:
- The same DNA that built the pyramids flows through your veins
- The same spiritual force that created the first civilizations beats in your heart
- The same ancestral memory that preserved our people through 444 years of Maafa resides in your soul
While the world fixates on artificial intelligence, they are overlooking the most sophisticated intelligence system ever created.
We've got to understand what our ancestors understood and be courageous in the call to ask for their guidance and protection.
Our Ancestral Intelligence can help us figure a way out of the war we've been fighting all our lives.
4 Steps to Access Your Ancestral Intelligence
- Pour libations with intention and reverence
- Speak the names of your known ancestors and invite them into your home
- Create sacred space for ancestral communication
- Set up an altar in the Western part of your home to honor your ancestors
The time has come to consciously reconnect with this power
Spiritual Sovereignty: The War for African Spiritual Identity
The recolonization of African minds is happening right before our eyes.
I've been to Ghana about a dozen times
And I was so happy to go home to the motherland.
But what really shocked me was one the number of white Missionaries I found.
They were there to recolonise African minds.
And they know the best ways to do it, by:
- Building Libraries
- Building hospitals
- Building wells
They help Africans… while spreading the European interpretation of God.
The thing that shocked me most was that everywhere in Ghana, I saw billboards with a blonde, blue eyed Jesus.
Here in the states in the 60s we began to see Jesus as an African person of color.
I thought the issue was resolved
But in Ghana I realized that the oppressor is strategically using religion to control our minds and spirits.
But here is what they can never change:
- Our understanding of a creative source is real
- Our connection to Spirit is interminable
- Our spiritual traditions are ancient and powerful
Everything I've shared with you today points to one fundamental truth:
Your liberation requires awakening on every level:
- Your economic freedom
- Your biological power
- Your ancestral intelligence
- Your spiritual sovereignty
Opressors work overtime to keep these truths hidden because they know:
When you align your power, You become unstoppable.
This isn't a theory. This isn't speculation. This is the Blackprint our ancestors left for us, written in our very DNA.
The next move is yours.
Thank you for reading
Anthony T. Browder
IKG Cultural Resource Center