As she wrote a bilingual blog about Rio de Janeiro’s urban issues, Julia Michaels became aware of the city’s African past. Rio received about 2 million of the 5 million enslaved Africans taken to Brazil. Thus it is the most important port in diaspora history (the future USA received 400,000 enslaved Africans, total). When Julia suggested a larger venue to a Rio museum founder, that founder made a bigger suggestion: connecting all the places in the world involved in enslaving and trafficking Africans, from the 15th to the 19th century. 

In 2020, Julia mentioned this stirring idea to her old friend and Atlanta resident Mike Wittenstein, lamenting the impossibility of making it real during the pandemic. “Why not do this digitally?” asked Mike. Thus FullCircle was born and the two friends, who had studied Portuguese together in Rio de Janeiro in 1978, became co-founders. Karen Routt joined the team in 2022 and became Executive Director.