For centuries, ravens have appeared in folklore as omens of darkness, death, and misfortune. Even a gathering of ravens has been poetically called an unkindness or a conspiracy, names that reflect centuries of suspicion surrounding this remarkable bird. Yet science reveals something extraordinary about this misunderstood creature. Behind its black feathers is one of nature’s most sophisticated avian minds, capable of solving problems, remembering social relationships, adapting to changing environments, and cooperating when circumstances demand it.
Sound familiar?
Black Americans know something about being misunderstood, underestimated, and judged by appearances while possessing extraordinary intelligence, creativity, resilience, and the ability to turn adversity into opportunity.
That parallel is not an assertion that our history is the same as a bird’s. It is a powerful metaphor for how intelligence can flourish despite the perceptions placed upon it.
Today, Newbeings 1619 proudly announces the raven (Corvus corax) as our official bird. Not simply because it is black, but because of what it represents: intelligence, adaptability, discernment, communication, cooperation, and the ability to thrive in a changing world.
These are the very qualities our ecosystem exists to recognize, refine, and elevate.
Intelligence Is Our Greatest Inheritance
The raven belongs to the corvid family, whose members have demonstrated remarkable cognitive abilities. Scientific studies show that ravens remember individuals and past interactions, navigate complex social relationships, and demonstrate flexible problem-solving skills. Their intelligence is not merely instinctive. It involves learning from experience and adjusting behavior when circumstances change.
This reflects the philosophy behind our Black American Solution Cipher. Generations of Black Americans have developed sophisticated methods of solving problems, navigating social complexity, improvising with limited resources, and creating opportunities where few seemed to exist.
The Solution Cipher seeks to move that brilliance from unconscious practice to conscious mastery. It combines SWOT analysis, Nominal Group Technique, the Delphi Method, and our distinctive Black American je ne sais quoi to examine problems, evaluate possibilities, and develop practical solutions.
Consider the raven’s encounters with the much larger bald eagle. Ravens display remarkable boldness, seemingly without fear, when pursuing and confronting eagles, demonstrating that size and strength do not always determine an encounter’s outcome. However, the popular story claiming that eagles escape by flying so high that pursuing ravens lose consciousness is a myth unsupported by scientific evidence. Eagles may simply fly away or gain altitude to avoid harassment. The real lesson is more valuable than the fiction: intelligence, adaptability, and strategic action can challenge superior strength, but truth must always prevail over an inspiring story.
The raven reminds us that surviving challenges demonstrates capability. But deliberately strengthening that capability opens the door to something greater.
Adaptation Is Not Enough. We Must Evolve.
Ravens inhabit environments ranging from frozen northern landscapes to deserts, forests, mountains, and cities. Their flexibility helps them exploit new opportunities and adjust to unfamiliar conditions.
Black Americans have likewise demonstrated the capacity to adapt under extraordinary circumstances. But Newbeings 1619 challenges us to move beyond a culture centered primarily on endurance and survival.
Our DeCol-DeTraum™ philosophy promotes the continuous practice of decolonizing, deconstructing, de-traumatizing, and detoxifying our minds, bodies, relationships, and lifestyles of harmful influences and destructive patterns.
This is what becoming a Newbeing means. We are not merely reacting to the world around us. We are deliberately transforming ourselves to become better prepared for the world ahead.
Survival was necessary. Evolution is intentional.
A Parliament of Ravens, Not Another Charismatic Leader
Ravens are socially intelligent. Research documents their ability to form relationships, recognize allies, remember social experiences, and cooperate with familiar individuals. Their relationships also involve competition and social hierarchies, so they are not literally a model of democratic government. Nevertheless, their sophisticated social behavior offers a useful lesson: intelligence does not exist only within the individual. It also emerges through relationships.
Historically, gatherings of ravens have been called an unkindness, a term documented as far back as the 1486 Book of St. Albans, or a conspiracy, another familiar poetic collective noun. These expressions reflect the mystery and suspicion that have surrounded ravens for centuries. The word parliament, meanwhile, has stronger traditional associations with rooks and owls. However, Newbeings 1619 is intentionally choosing a Parliament of Ravens, replacing inherited negative imagery with a symbol of deliberation, collective intelligence, and purposeful cooperation.
This choice is particularly meaningful because our vision rejects the notion that millions of Black Americans must depend on one charismatic personality to determine our collective destiny. Instead, we envision decentralized leadership supported by informed participation, advanced voting tools, evidence, and shared accountability.
Within our social ecosystem, members can connect, exchange knowledge, examine competing ideas, and participate in developing collective solutions. The objective is not unquestioning agreement. It is conviction without domination, unity without uniformity, and leadership without centralization.
A community becomes more capable when its members learn to think independently and coordinate intelligently.
Communication, Culture, and the Power to Define Ourselves
Ravens possess diverse vocalizations and use communication in social interactions. Their vocal flexibility is another expression of their remarkable adaptability.
Newbeings 1619 understands that language is more than sound. It transmits knowledge, shapes identity, preserves experience, and influences how people understand their possibilities.
Our evolving language, Ravvenʒae (Ravvenzhae), expresses that understanding through intentional linguistic and cultural development. Its guiding philosophy is an evolving language that evolves those who speak it.
The raven provides an especially fitting symbol for this project, even as the similarity between its name and Ravvenʒae adds a distinctive cultural resonance.
Our Lexicon develops a shared vocabulary for understanding our experiences. Common Knowledge encourages historical literacy and evidence-based thinking. Our blogs challenge assumptions, while our culturally intentional Calendar encourages us to reconsider how we organize and value time.
These features share one purpose: to strengthen our ability to understand ourselves rather than allowing others to define us.
Decorum Is a Form of Intelligence
A 2017 study found that ravens remembered whether human experimenters had treated them fairly in a particular exchange task, even after a month. That does not mean ravens possess a human moral code, but it demonstrates how social memory can influence future interactions.
Humans have an even greater responsibility to exercise discernment in how we treat one another.
Our Decorum+ initiative establishes expectations for respectful conduct, personal responsibility, and community standards. Its QR-based identity feature allows members to demonstrate their commitment to those expectations.
Relationships built upon reliability, dignity, reciprocity, and accountability are more likely to support meaningful cooperation than relationships dominated by hostility and disorder.
Intelligence without discipline can become destructive. Intelligence guided by decorum can become transformative.
Building Our Own Networks of Opportunity
Ravens sometimes recruit other ravens to valuable food opportunities. Their social behavior demonstrates that access to resources and relationships can be closely connected, even when competition remains part of the equation.
Newbeings 1619 seeks to turn connection into opportunity through its Business Directory, social platform, and cultural initiatives.
Our objective is to make it easier for Black Americans to discover one another’s businesses, circulate economic opportunities, strengthen professional relationships, and support productive enterprises.
Through our emerging economic metrics and research tools, we also seek to understand the flow of resources with greater accuracy. Economic empowerment requires more than enthusiastic slogans. It requires knowledge, trusted networks, informed decisions, and measurable results.
Our goal is not simply to spend together. It is to build the capacity to prosper together.
The Raven Is Already Prepared for Change. Are We?
We are entering an era of accelerating artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, advanced computing, and economic transformation. These developments will challenge institutions, occupations, and assumptions that many people consider permanent.
As a futurist, I regard this period as both a warning and an extraordinary opportunity.
The raven succeeds partly because it can learn, adapt, and respond flexibly to unfamiliar situations. That is precisely the orientation Newbeings 1619 seeks to cultivate as we prepare for the technological singularity and the profound changes surrounding it.
Our evolving AI assistant, Shahtiqua, supports inquiry and exploration. Our Solution Cipher encourages disciplined analysis. Our social platform provides a foundation for organizing intelligence and participation. Together, these tools are intended to help us anticipate change rather than perpetually react to it.
The future will not wait for us to become comfortable. We must become technologically fluent, strategically prepared, economically capable, and willing to correct our assumptions when evidence demands it.
More Than a Bird. A Standard to Aspire To.
The raven is not a perfect creature, nor are we romanticizing every aspect of its behavior. It is opportunistic, competitive, and sometimes aggressive. Its value as our symbol lies in the particular qualities that science has revealed and that our mission seeks to cultivate.
The raven represents an intelligence that refuses to remain confined by appearances. It learns. It remembers. It communicates. It adapts. It discovers opportunities and navigates complex relationships.
We have chosen it because Newbeings 1619 is not simply an organization asking Black Americans to celebrate who we have been. It is an evolving ecosystem challenging us to take responsibility for who we are becoming.
Our bird is black, but its color is not its greatest distinction. Its intelligence is.
And that is the point.
We honor our ancestors by remembering what they endured. We honor ourselves by confronting what must change. We honor our descendants by building what has not yet existed.
The raven has earned its place in nature through millions of years of evolution.
Our evolution must now become a conscious choice.
The raven is our symbol. The Newbeing is our aspiration. The future is our responsibility.
Join the Newbeings 1619 community at https://newbeings1619.us/. Explore the ecosystem, strengthen your knowledge, bring your ideas, and help build the next chapter of Black American life.
Newbeings 1619. We innovate, or we dissipate.
Sources and Further Reading
- Thomas Bugnyar (2024). “Why Are Ravens Smart? Exploring the Social Intelligence Hypothesis.” Journal of Ornithology. Research reviewing raven intelligence, social cognition, and cooperation.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10787684/ - Massen and colleagues (2017). “Ravens Remember the Nature of a Single Reciprocal Interaction Sequence.” Animal Behaviour. Research demonstrating raven memory of reliable and unreliable exchange partners.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347217301161 - Lead Stories (March 10, 2021). “Fact Check: The Crow Is NOT the Only Bird That Dares to Peck an Eagle.” Investigates and debunks the viral claim that eagles fly high enough to cause pursuing birds to lose consciousness. Includes commentary from an Audubon expert.
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/03/fact-check-the-crow-is-not-the-only-bird-the-dartes-to-peck-an-eagle.html - The Book of St. Albans (1486). Historical documentation of an unkindness of ravens among traditional collective animal names.
https://bookofsaintalbans.com/collective-nouns-list/ - Michael Quinion, World Wide Words. “Precision of Lexicographers.” Examines the historical tradition of collective animal names, including parliament of rooks.
https://www.worldwidewords.org/collectives.html - Newbeings 1619. Official website, organizational mission, and ecosystem initiatives.
https://newbeings1619.us/