Mixed Race Studies

“We assigned [Allyson] Hobbs’s book [A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life] because we thought it was a model for writing cultural history – it is beautifully crafted and draws on sources in very clear ways to tell its story. We hoped to inspire our history students to commit themselves in similar ways to telling the stories of people who are often lost to history,” —Colgate University Assistant Professor of History Daniel Bouk

Megan Leo, “Uncovering Hidden Histories: Hobbs Discusses Her Award-Winning Book,” The Colgate Maroon-News, March 31, 2016. http://www.thecolgatemaroonnews.com/news/article_f2fab440-f757-11e5-9c94-cb38fb52fc0d.html.

String of Pearls: Exploring the Melungeon mystery

SWVa Today
Wytheville, Virginia
2016-03-29

Margaret Linford, President
Smyth County Genealogical Society, Marion, Virginia

Judge Isaac Freeman spoke to the Smyth County Genealogical Society on Tuesday, March 22, regarding the Melungeon people. He has been intrigued by this topic for many years. His father was best friends with local historian Goodridge Wilson, who often spoke of the Melungeons. Judge Freeman said he can remember him talking about which local families were part of this unique group.

“Where have all the purebred Melungeons gone?” This question was posed in an article many years ago. Judge Freeman laughed as he shared this question with our group. “Of course,” he said, “the answer to this question is that there is no such thing as a ‘purebred’ Melungeon.”

Who are the Melungeons? There is no simple answer to this question. In N. Brent Kennedy’s book, “The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America,” he proposes that Turkish slaves were brought to America by Portuguese sailors. Once they arrived in America, they joined with female Cherokee Indians and other local tribes. This was the beginning of the “Melungeons.”

Most definitions of the Melungeons simply state that they are a “mixed race people.”…

Read the entire article here.

Rachel Dolezal 1 year later: ‘I don’t have any regrets about how I identify’

The Today Show
2016-04-12

Eun Kyung Kim

Rachel Dolezal said she remains puzzled about why people have questioned her racial identity but is “ready to move on” from the controversy that made her a household name last spring.

“I don’t have any regrets about how I identify. I’m still me and nothing about that has changed,” the former NAACP chapter president told TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie on Tuesday.

Dolezal, who was born to white parents, created a national debate about racial identity after she told the world in a TODAY interview last June, “I identify as black.”…

Read the story and watch the interview here.

Lumbee Indians seek end to a century of questions about identity

The Baltimore Sun
Baltimore, Maryland
1993-10-12

Richard O’Mara, Staff Writer

Proud people from North Carolina find a home in Baltimore

Shirley Jeffrey, an East Baltimore resident, remembers the painful moment five years ago when two Sioux Indians told her that “Lumbees aren’t really Indians.”

Jimmy Hunt recalls a similar experience as an Army recruit when a sergeant asked the American Indians in the group to stand up. “There were two others besides myself,” he says. “Later they said I wasn’t an Indian because I was a Lumbee.”

Not really Indians? How could this be said of the largest American Indian group east of the Mississippi? The ninth-largest in the United States, with nearly 50,000 members, according to the Bureau of the Census. About 4,300 of them are in Maryland.

The question of identity has troubled the Lumbees for more than a century, but it may be resolved this year if Congress approves a bill introduced by Rep. Charles Rose III, D-N.C., to extend full recognition to the tribe.

It’s not that Mrs. Jeffrey is uncertain about who she is. Nor is Mr. Hunt…

Read the entire article here.