Judy Masterson, Lake County News-Sun, November 2, 2009
A group of black Americans interested in exploring their American Indian roots has formed a group called the Northern Illinois Afro-Aboriginals.
“The African Native American is a story that’s not told,” said Ali Albakri, a founding member and managing editor of Lake County Arts magazine, who heard from a cousin that his family tree includes members of the Blackfoot tribe.
Heritage quest
No one knows how many black American Indians live in the United States. During the 2000 Census, 182,494 people were identified as ethnically African and Native American.
Harvard University historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts the number of black Americans who have at least one great-grandparent with American Indian blood at just 5 percent.
Northern Illinois Afro-Aboriginals founder Joe Russell believes the number to be much higher.
{snip}
The idea for the group came from Joe Russell, 54, of Waukegan, a substitute teacher. Russell’s birth mother, Tienna Evans, was a full-blooded Arapaho, he said, and his birth father was black. Russell, who was adopted, has struggled to learn the facts of his heritage, and he has struggled for acceptance as a bi-racial, multi-ethnic person in a culture that is just beginning to embrace multiculturalism.
“Being racially mixed means, to some groups, that I’m diluting blood lines,” he said. “But I’m equal parts both.
{snip}
Russell points to the close connection between American Indians and Africans, the latter who were depicted in Incan and Mayan ruins. Indians and Africans have a history of cultural exchange and intermarriage, especially in the southern United States. According to some historical accounts, Africans already lived in Jamestown when the Dutch imported slaves to the settlement in 1619—a year before the arrival of the Pilgrims.
“Blacks intermarried with Indians 3,000 years ago—we’ve been around that long,” said Russell, who has explored the connections between the two ethnic groups and has created posters and other visual aids that he uses to teach on the subject.
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on November 4, 2009)
Comments
This is a scam by Blacks to double dip their racial privileges.
I remember reading, about a year ago, that the Cherokees had kicked out a bunch of blacks from the tribe. They said that there is no such thing as a half-Cherokee. I doubt this Afro group will get much love from them.
The only thing they have to worry about is which victim group gets the most benefits. Since they belong to both, they have to figure out which set of benefits to apply for.
How could Black Sub-Saharan Blacks procreate with American Indians at least 3,000 years ago?
Is there anything blacks won’t steal?
“How could Black Sub-Saharan Blacks procreate with American Indians at least 3,000 years ago?”
Statues and other artworks depicting people from the Olmec civilization that have somewhat African features have led to speculation that the original settlers of Mexico were black. As to how they would have gotten there, I assume by boat as the Europeans did. I don’t believe the theory has much support in the anthropological and historical communities though. It would be very interesting and paradigm shifting if this was the case though.
“The African Native American is a story that’s not told”
Yes the story of Indians owning black slaves isn’t told very often. Hardly at all. It might distract from the lessons where we learn the white man is the source of all evil and discontent.
“Blacks intermarried with Indians 3,000 years ago”
It would certainly help explain South and Central American IQ?
Blacks built both the Egyptian and Inca empires? And yet they built nothing south of the Sahara for themselves? What a selfless and nobel people the black African is.
Blacks kept calling in to identify themselves as part Indian. Most acted as if they were Indian blood brothers. The representative was less than impressed by their interest.
“Blacks intermarried with Indians 3,000 years ago—we’ve been around that long …,”
So in 1,000 BCE, 25 centuries before Magellan, blacks, who never managed the wheel or writing, made their way across the Atlantic and “hooked up” with Amerinds. Got it.
“The idea for the group came from Joe Russell, 54, of Waukegan, a substitute teacher.”
You couldn’t invent someone with worse qualifications for pontificating about anything (Waukegan is a once-pleasant ghetto on the shore of Lake Michigan, directly north of Chicago; the News-Sun is one of my wretched “local” papers).
” … Russell, … has explored the connections between the two ethnic groups and has created posters and other visual aids that he uses to teach on the subject.”
Perhaps the “visual aids” are cribbed from that other afro-eminence, Legrand Clegg, who believes that black Egyptians colonized Mars.
The blacks migrated to Africa out of India some 500,000 years ago. They stayed in Africa until were taken out by other races, not by choice. They entered the Americas around the 1600’s as slaves and not prior. They do not have the intellect to build structures requiring any kind of math, engineering, etc. More than likely, there were some interbreeding with the American Indians but not for 3,000 years!
Maybe he believes one of those theories that West Africans sailed to the Americas before Christopher Columbus.
“Anonymous wrote at 8:13 PM on November 4:
How could Black Sub-Saharan Blacks procreate with American Indians at least 3,000 years ago?”
They couldn’t have. This is probably some Afrocentric propaganda.
I remember reading, about a year ago, that the Cherokees had kicked out a bunch of blacks from the tribe. They said that there is no such thing as a half-Cherokee. I doubt this Afro group will get much love from them.
The blacks were actually the descendents of Cherokee slaves who wanted admission to the tribe. The measure of admitting the blacks was put to a democratic tribal vote and the tribe rejected their admission. The controlled media went ballistic as a result.
Just from reading this balderdash I know that Joe Russel is black,
— Anonymous wrote at 8:13 PM on November 4:
Anonymous,
This guy Russell, clearly a true aborigine himself, is now peddling this bizarre story that Africans and Amer-Indians have been intermarrying for 3000 years?
I note he doesn’t specify who visited whom. I must therefore assume that the Indians sailed to Africa, clearly weren’t impressed by what they found there, and promptly returned to the Americas, perhaps bringing with them a few Africans as biological curios.
This might at least partially explain Russell’s strange theories.
Blacks may have made it to these shores long ago serving as Phoenician galley help (Phoenicia being in modern day Lebanon).
The Phoenicians, along with Vikings, Romans, and the Chinese all were proven to have travelled the coasts of the Americas in antiquity. How they ended up in the Yucatan where the Olmec heads were discovered may have something to do with lightening a ship’s load for more return voyage cargo space or they simply went AWOL from the crew once on land for resupply. The Phoenicians contracted for the Pharoahs of Egypt obtaining tin and copper for the bronze age, among other materials. Egyptians were riparian (river dwelling) and never engineered seaworthy vessels, relying instead on the seafaring Phoenicians. Best theory uncovered yet?
“The Phoenicians…Romans, and the Chinese all were proven to have travelled the coasts of the Americas in antiquity.”
Really? What evidence do they have for this and why isn’t it more well known? Everyone knows about of the Vikings but the others are news to me and I’d be interested in reading more about it.
” 20 — K. Sear wrote at 11:15 PM on November 5:
-“The Phoenicians…Romans, and the Chinese all were proven to have travelled the coasts of the Americas in antiquity.”
-Really? What evidence do they have for this and why isn’t it more well known? Everyone knows about of the Vikings but the others are news to me and I’d be interested in reading more about it.”
A: Lots of sea faring vessels preserved in various ways along the coasts, lakes, and rivers with some inland artifacts discovered in the past. Phoenician artifacts discovered near North and South American lakes, Roman galleys preserved in the Amazon delta, sunken Chinese junks circa 1300s preserved off the coast of Colombia. There are various scientific pursuits and authors who have added to this ongoing story over the past 150 years, with academia and Western religion suppressing discoveries for selfish reasons. My intiation into these mysteries were with the authors Graham Hancock, Ivar Zapp/George Erickson, Rand/Rose Flem-Ath, and Charles Hapgood, among others, who all studied antiquity with unrestrained archeological scientific proof. Antarctica, along with the Americas are still the least understood contintents in these historical regards. As Voltaire stated,”Antiquity is full of the singing of praises of an even more distant antiquity”.
Caveat Lector: This subject matter is highly alluring to a mind seeking the next best explanations!
The Irishman, Brendan The Navigator is believed to have also sailed to America.
Weren’t Amerindians still in Siberia 3,000 years ago before they travled to America via a land bridge? Does Russell believe the Kennewick Man was black?
Weren’t Amerindians still in Siberia 3,000 years ago before they travled to America via a land bridge? Does Russell believe the Kennewick Man was black?
You have your time line wrong. There are a couple of theories about how and when American Indians got here. One is that they came over the Siberian land bridge during the Ice Age when sea levels were lower. That would have been about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. Another theory is that they arrived by boat in the far northwest and traveled by boat down the Pacific coast. That would have been about 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. There are Indian archeological sites in North American dating back 13,000 to 14,000 years. Kennewick Man (who was certainly Eurasian in origin, just how much European or how much Asian can be debated) has been determined to be 9300 years old by carbon dating. So the American Indians can rightly claim to have been the first settlers of the New World by a wide margin. I don’t believe there’s any credible evidence that blacks were here before they were imported as slaves by whites.
