By Gloria Dulan-Wilson
This is a personal, but essential Thank You Note.
I could not in clear conscience let another second go by without having done this: I must express my sincere and profound gratitude for a set of ANGEL/FRIENDS who would not let me go down in the dust.
When you have people in your life who absolutely have your back, like I have just discovered that I have, you know that these are no ordinary people, but have to be elevated to a new level of being. Therefore I have coined the term ANGEL/FRIENDS.
I had recently hit a wall, which so many of us in the US are facing, where we've run out of options, and everything appeared to be crashing down around me. I had prayed, meditated, and done everything I could do in my human capacity to try to avert the inevitable. But it looked as if everything had tanked, and I was going down for the count.
Though I continued to pray and meditate, I had quite frankly, literally run out options. At least I thought I had. As Joel Osteen often says, while we operate on the natural, God operates on the Supernatural, and makes a way out of no way.
And that is exactly what He did. He gave me a band of ANGEL/FRIENDS, who rallied around me - despite hurricane Irene; despite the fact that they themselves were facing challenges of their own; despite the fact that on the natural realm it was deemed impossible, they pulled me through, jerking me out of the very jaws of seeming defeat.
In paying tribute to my ANGEL/FRIENDS, I am also thanking God, the Living Spirit Almighty for having brought them into my life. Without His empowering them to move heaven and earth collectively, I doubt seriously I would be sitting here writing this to you today. As Israel Houghton says in his song, "I'm Still Standing!" "Thanks Be to God."
So to my ANGEL/FRIENDS: Asante Sana, merci beaucoup, gracias, danke schoen, arigato, and above all thank you so very much for being there for me. I extend my sincere appreciation to each and every one of you; my blessings, my gratitude, and my hope that your lives will always be filled with love, peace, poise, prosperity, success, happiness, health, wealth, abundance, fulfillment - or the next best thing.
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Gloria Dulan-Wilson Blog/ ECLECTICALLY BLACK NEWS
For Eclectic Black People
VIP: Views . Interests . Perspectives
8.30.2011
8.28.2011
Disenfranchisement of Black Cherokees: Time to Go on the Warpath!!!
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Well,well, well, they finally did it! or they think they did. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma finally legislatively disenfranchised thousands of Black Indians who have been part of their nation for over three centuries. Notice I said legislatively, because BLOOD cannot be unmixed.
How insipid. How sad. How tragic. How ignorant. Wonder what kind of water they're drinking these days? Can't be the sweet water of Oklahoma. Maybe they've allowed the wacky weed to grow too close to the banks. Whatever it is, they have shown that when you let an Indian with white heritage become the so-called leader, racism can't be very far behind, can it? What is it about the white eyes and their racist genetic code? They seem to infect those they touch. They certainly infected Principal Chief Chad Smith (half-breed white - oops, did I say that out loud?), the miscreant who made this cockamamie proposal.
Talk about divide and conquer. And you thought Blacks were the only ones who fell prey to such machinations. Look around you, guys. In addition to all out war, extermination and genocide, it appears that a fair amount of divide and conquer is what's keeping my brothers and sisters from taking a stand in regard to this racist situation.
Indeed, it was the promise by some nefarious rep-ugh-blicans that they would not be able to receive monetary benefits, because the Blacks in the tribe would then be able to construe it as "reparations for slavery" that sparked this whole mess to begin with. Under the impression that getting the Blacks off the rolls would then make it possible for them to reap heap big dollars, they have proceeded on a course of action that not to many of the tribe agreed with. But the tantalization of dollars dangled in front of them have turned those who were initially reluctant into supporters.
Congresswoman Diane Watson, D. California, had been a critical foe in this regard, and held panels during the Congressional Black Caucus to highlight what was going on low under the radar. Margaret Vann of Oklahoma, and a descendent of Black Indians was one of the key panelist. Congresswoman Watson, who was originally from Oklahoma, and of Black and Choctaw heritage, had introduced legislation aimed at stopping the Cherokees from going forward with the disenfranchisement; there were stiff penalties, including loss of federal dollars to be imposed should they succeed. Now that she has stepped down, and Karen Bass has assumed the mantle, one wonders whether she will be as ardent and vociferous in making sure they don't get away with modern day segregation.
Interesting, isn't it? The disenfranchised disenfranchising those who have stuck with them for hundreds of years? Many have heard of the Trail of Tears, during which thousands of Cherokees and Indians of other nations were pushed off their lands and sent westward to what is now known as Oklahoma, under Andrew Jackson, then president of the United States, in order to give the land to white settlers.
The land they were being sent to, Oklahoma, which literally means "land of the Red people" was part of the Louisiana Purchase, acquired when the French decided to leave the United States and this part of the hemisphere, after the Haitians kicked their butts in 1804. The French realized they were no match for the Haitians when they came running through the fire they had set to burn the island down, during a battle. The sight of those Black men and women scared the beejeebers out of them, and they went scurrying back to France in much the same way Strauss-Kahn is doing now after having tried to rape an African maid (it appears that individually and collectively cowardice is part of their collective gene pool - but I digress). The French hurried up and got out of Dodge, and after making the best deal they could, cut bait and went back to things French.
A fair amount of Black people, who were then slaves to the Indians who were being pushed out of the south, traveled on that smallpox ridden trek to Oklahoma. Though some perished, a fairly large amount survived, and eventually married into the tribes. Another wave of African descended slaves who sneaked out of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri (long before the Civil War), and other surrounding slave states - such as my family did - likewise stole away to Oklahoma for freedom, since it was the only place in the US at that time that whites were not allowed to go. Those also intermarried with the Indian families there.
Oklahoma had gone from a reservation for Cherokees to the place where the Five Civilized Tribes (Chocktaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminoles), as well as smaller tribes, now resided "LEGALLY", on their own set aside lands (you-all remember set asides don't you? It's that little portion the feds give you to make up for the fact that they have been cheating you all along - but it's generally got a piece of elastic tied to it, and when it looks like you're doing too well, they jerk it back. Anywaaaaaay...)
They were considered "civilized" because they adopted many of the white man's ways, and had educational centers, constitutions, and,thanks to Sequoiah, could actually read their own language. This was opposed to those Indians who recognized the whites for the threats they really were and routinely opened up a can of whip-ass in an effort to keep them from stealing their lands. Unfortunately, the inevitable "manifest destiny" ruled out this as an effective methodology. Now, nearly extinct, these valiant warriors and their descendents have been relegated to some of the worst lands in different parts of the US, where the grass is no longer green and the water that does flow is pretty putrid.
This latest salvo at Black Indians would be comical if it wasn't so heinous. How do you unmix blood? Even the white eyes know that by law one tenth of one per cent of Black blood makes you Black; and by extension, the same is probably true in terms of making you Indian. They sure went out of their way to identify those whites who were part Indian. Most of them got the boot.
So now here we stand, in what is known as a "mexican stand-off." No matter which way you move, somebody is going to get whacked. And as far as I'm concerned, better them than us. Particularly in this instance. It is now time for Blacks, whether you have Indian in your family or not (and you know, we almost all do, because those early slaves would never have survived had it not been for our Indian counterparts), IT'S TIME TO GO ON THE WARPATH!!
It's time for the NAACP, SCLC, Urban League, as well as Blacks individually and collectively, to come down on them and let them know what time it is. No more nice guy; no more panels; no more discussions. No one, within the shores of the United States of America, as it is constituted at this time gets to disenfranchize or segregate Black people.
As a Black woman of Indian heritage - Cherokee, Crow, Creek, I am quite frankly, pissed off. Having grown up in a city where all these heritages honored each other, it is clear to me that this has been engineered over a long, deliberate period of time. We who went to Anadarko every year, or who celebrated our mutual lines in so many other ways, are appalled to find that the so-called youth have gotten into the fray and totally screwed things up. I call on the elders to sanction them, take back the reigns, and put things right before there is a total conflagration in Oklahoma. It will make the Oklahoma Ruin (er, Run) look like a cake walk. You remember that, don't you - April 22, 1889, the day when they opened up our land to whites and pushed us off to marginal lands; taking and uprooting everything we had. Had the tribes not been so "civilized" maybe things would have worked out differently. Now it appears that the "civilized" factor is allowing for fascism to take hold. We are the only ones (Black Indians) to have been disenfranchized twice - once for being Black, and second for being Indian. So for those who think that Black people who claim their Indian heritage (by the way notice that no where in here did I say "Native American") are trying to escape being Black, better think again. Either way, under the current system, we are the targets.
So my Cherokee Brothers and Sisters, my African American Brothers and Sisters You Better Wake Up Now!
Take a look at your population stats. The Five Civilized Tribes and the Blacks who settled after 1865 (Civil War) made up 100% of Oklahoma's population. We all thrived. We lived and worked together successfully; had rich harvests, thriving towns and cities. We basically were happy. Now, of course, that's quite a bit before my time, but I heard stories from my Grandmother (full blooded Cherokee), and my Grandfather (Full Blooded Black Man), as well as my great aunts and uncles - about how wonderful things were "back in the day." (Check out the move "Posse", by the Hudlin Brothers to get a sense of where I'm coming from). Who do you think caused the Oklahoma dust bowl, that caused the land to blow away, wiped out crops, caused people to starve, and sent those very same white settlers scurrying for California after they decimated some of the most arable (read, fertile) land in the area? We remained, we continued to till our land, we continued to thrive. Oklahoma used to have 67 all Black Towns; 13 of them still remain! Even in the days when we weren't "bosom buddies" we definitely weren't sworn enemies either.
In this day and age of global relationships, the Oklahoma region of the Cherokee nation is more reflective of Jim Crowism than anything else. That this must be stopped immediately is an understatement.
Below is an excerpt from Black Indian Magazine covering this latest attempt. Please read it carefully. Because if they are able to succeed segregating us in Oklahoma, can the nation be far behind - particularly under a Rep-ugh-blican run Congress? Think about it!!
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
[TheBlackList] Appearances: Black Indians-Cherokee Freedmen Stripped of Citizenship
by Angela Finley Molette (Tuscaloosa Warrior Woman) as excerpted from BlackIndian Magazine
One must consider that a gentrified Native American Nation, in collusion with the highest levels of U.S. Government, driven by the appointed superiority of persons of a certain mindset and foundation to change the appearance of an entire aboriginal species on the Continent, has nearly succeeded in their task.
“the core philosophic foundation behind a modern racist perception management program; of wherein which the perceptions of black people are being covertly negatively shaped as a means of defending and maintaining white dominance and control.” [Franklin Jones, aka Tha Nubian, 2011].
Ergo, the appearance of descendants of Aboriginal Ethnic Cherokees having African Blood has been re-cast negatively in revisionist media-driven commentary as “non-Indians” by “the modern manifestation of the original Cherokee Nation,” so described by Principal Chief Chadwick Smith, himself a lineal descendant of mixed blood (White/Native American) Confederate Cherokees (read; losers of the Civil War in Indian Territory).
This is happening to Ethnic Cherokees (popularly known as Cherokee Freedmen) despite being legally thrust “as Indians” to dwell within the historic Indian Country by hundreds of years of permissive and legalized Naturalization through residence, birth, death, marriage, adoption, land ownership and enfranchisement by the Union Loyalist Faction of Cherokee Nation in the Tribal geographical Treaty-mandated domain of Indian Country, and finally Indian Territory (under the jurisdiction and legal sphere of influence) of the so-called “Indian Nations” of the 5 Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma.
The Enfranchisement of Ethnic Cherokees, in full acknowledgement of their African Ancestry, former condition of Enslavement, Servitude, Free Persons of Color status and their 1863 Adoption by the Cherokee Nation Legislature, was memorialized by the Cherokee Treaty with the United States inscribed at the Nations Capital in Washington, D.C., in 1866 and apparently also entered as a Constitutional Amendment to boot.
Principal Chief Chad Smith, a self-appointed opponent of Ethnic Cherokees, presided over a Media Campaign created to aid in smoothing over the mean-spirited, racist and immoral tenor of the Cherokee Nation campaign against Cherokees of African Ancestry seeking modern Citizenship validation based upon eligibility derived by their ancestry and lineal descent. He introduced much more socially palatable language in efforts to “terminate the Citizenship and eligibility of non-Indians.“ Except that the overwhelming number of terminated Cherokee “non-Indians” are those Cherokee Nationals having African Ancestry and there is no equal and opposite program to terminate the Citizenship of the vast number of Cherokees (250,000+) having Caucasian or other ancestry.
The insidious Cherokee Media Management Campaign was instituted after throwing the gauntlet down against the enrollment of Ethnic Cherokees. Chief Smith consulted with a myriad of high powered legal eagles who suggested that Media Management Campaign re-center the Chief’s campaign to make Freedmen Campaign for enfranchisement to be a test of Cherokee Nation Sovereignty, amid a persistent roaring din of racial aspersions cast, including; “Racist Cherokees White-washing Cherokee Nation History” and the “Modern Tribes giving themselves the power to erase the Ethnicity of African Ancestored Cherokees due to fears of being viewed as Black too“, Indian Reservations are Black-Free Zones sanctioned by the U.S.A., and Indian Apartheid, etc.
During the 2009 Federal BAR Association Conference at the ultra-glitzy Skirvin Hotel, downtown Oklahoma City near Bricktown, an Oklahoma entertainment mecca built by the overlords of the failed Indian State of Sequoyah on reclaimed/gentrified lands once held by the poorest most poverty-stricken Black Descendants in the entire State, the Conference Chairperson gagged the Representative of the Cherokee Freedmen Band, Marilyn Vann to keep her from speaking freely during the public event (held in non-Court Room Venue).
Vann's goal was to present the Cherokee Freedmen perspective in the midst of an assemblage of the brightest legal minds in the Nation, in a conference segment promoted as “a debate” between Cherokee Chief Chad Smith and the esteemed Dr. Charles Ogletree, Mentor of President and Mrs. Barack Obama. He gently encouraged the Cherokee Chief to see this struggle as a once in a lifetime Teachable Moment, the kind that goes down in history, attached to Great Men and Women.
At that point, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation looked at Ogletree as if he wanted to pierce the impeccable and learned Black Man’s soul with his eyes. It was a historic Teachable moment alright, it taught us that we were in for the fight of our lives with a very wealthy nation, while we were the most destitute in a land of plenty,
The Chief of the 2nd wealthiest Tribal Nation in America, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma was allowed to speak freely (even though he was a defendant in a suit lodged by Vann), but before he said one word, Chad Smith introduced his anti-Freedmen Campaign Video that showed healthy happy Cherokees (including the mixed Black children of enrolled modern Cherokee Women). The knowledgable in the room recognized the difference between those children and persons of Cherokee Freedmen Ancestry. The Mother’s of the children in the video trace their lineage back to Cherokees without African Ancestry. The modern Cherokee women choosing to have children by Black Men have nothing what so ever to do with historic Freedmen Ancestry. Yet Smith’s Media Campaign Video challenge the unlearned mind to make that leap, which the average man cannot make without knowing Cherokee History.
I suppose to assuage their guilt, the Moderator allowed me to speak, which was much more irritating to Chief Smith, because my Representation and Advocacy is for all Indian Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes, not just the Cherokees.
“Today the U.S. Government, as with many other white governed nations now uses media driven perception management programs to defend and maintain their position of white dominance and control. The U.S. media’s racially devaluing depictions and distorted portrayal of its Black population that amplifies the negative to the point that it distorts reality is a deliberate government deplored perception management program. It is purposefully designed to imply the superiority of its whites populous over its Black; therefore creating internalized -self-contemptuous- responses within its Black population that hinders their Black unity, upward mobility and manipulate them to accept white dominance over their lives. It also reinforces seemingly pre-conditioned response of resentment and prejudicial images of Black people in the majority population, thereby creating a false impression of wanton Black criminality and violence. This creates conditioned responses in its population for eventualities to unfold against its targeted Black populous without opposition or resentment.
Dr. Edward Bernays, a mass manipulation and propaganda specialist hired by several U.S. presidents describes this process by saying that: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of a group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it."
“The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) describes "perception management" as a type of psychological operation intended to provoke the behavior you want out of a given individual or targeted group collectively. Perception management through propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, and direct behavior of a population to achieve responses that furthers the desired intent of the Government.”
Franklin Jones aka Thanubian www.divineBlacktruth.org
Based upon our interpretation of the Wednesday, August 24, 2011 Headline News regarding their specific (unique) Ethnic origins, Cherokee Freedmen were classed in summary judgment by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court as “non-Indians” and “Descendants of Slaves,“ made Citizens merely by “an 1866 Constitutional Amendment” ahead of being stripped of their Cherokee Citizenship, Nationality and exiled against International Prohibition of that action, as the final move in a devastatingly slick end game created by a First Nation Democracy, intended for the purpose.
Interpretation of the Revoked Citizenship of Ethnic Cherokees
Let us be clear about what is really happening to Ethnic Cherokees (as well as Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes), they have been forcefully stripped of their Tribal Citizenship, Nationality, Exiled and rendered Stateless, not for legitimate reasons, like treason, sedition or an attempt to overthrow their Tribal Government. Rather, Indian Freedmen find themselves legally banished (in 2011) by a retroactive law introduced by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court, so rendered ostensibly because “citizenship was extended to the freedmen by an 1866 Cherokee constitutional amendment--not the treaty--and that Judge Cripps did not have the authority to overturn its results.“
Well, according to Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., it’s Enid, Oklahoma Spokesperson and Representative, Dr. Angela Molette (Tuscaloosa Ohoyo) Black Warrior Woman, says; “the official Media account provides only the partial truth about Cherokee Freedmen Citizenship (which makes us question whether or not the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court was also dealing only with a partial truth also), that being…persons formerly enslaved by any Cherokee, as well as Free Persons of Color never having been in enslaved, but living within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation prior to 1861, gained legally indefeasible Citizenship by surety of an En Masse Adoption in 1863, at Cowskin Prairie by the Special Act of the Cherokee Legislature, led by Chief Downing and Spring Frog (a Dignitary and lineal descendant of the old Great Chiefs of Chota).
That’s three full years before the Legislative Enactment was included in the 1866 Cherokee Constitution, making their Citizenship inalienable by Naturalization.”
In completion of the 1863 Legislative Enactment, the original Cherokee Nation Legislature invoked the 1866 Constitutional Amendment to confirm the Legislative Enactment, En Masse Adoption and Inclusion of Cherokee Freedmen as fully enfranchised Equal Citizens by the 1866 Cherokee Treaty with the United States of America.
“In that light, one begins to see clearly the fiction in the new Cherokee Nation Supreme Court Decision. The Cherokee Freedmen have been banished, exiled and have now suffered legal termination of their historic Cherokee Citizenship and true Indigenous Nationality, because of their African Admixture, Ethnic Origin and Historic Previous Condition of Servitude.
The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court just used Magic (built upon racism) to execute an Ex Post Facto Law to deprive them of their 1866 Treaty Rights, Citizenship, Indigenous Nationality and access to benefits and entitlements for which ‘Indians’ are eligible.”
The Magic: Depriving Cherokee Freedmen of their True Nationality. Despite their International Human Right to a Nationality and Self-Identification, Freedmen were classed in summary judgment by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court as “non-Cherokees,” “non-Indians” and “Descendants of Slaves,” because of the way the attained their Nationality,” which was incredibly…through a Constitutional Amendment. Even if that was all, why should that be perceived as tenuous, unsecured and revocable for the flimsiest of reasons? Isn’t that how U.S. Slaves received their Citizenship in America?
The second act of the Magic Show was the characterize the Freedmen struggle for Enfranchisement as an affront, assault and challenge to Cherokee National Sovereignty and its right to choose its Citizens. But the Cherokee Nation right to choose Citizens cannot outweigh the rights of an entitlement group enfranchised by Treaty, nor shall Cherokee Nation Laws be steeped in historic racism, insinuating that a Constitutional Amendment was not forceful enough law to maintain eligibility to Citizenship while at the same time ignoring Birthright and Adoption. Nor can installation or use of Ex Post Facto Laws be implemented to deprive certain groups of historic legal Treaty, Citizenship and Nationality Rights. Finally, simply because the Cherokee Nation in rebellion, does not also mean that the United States is relieved of its duty to protect the rights of an Ethnic Protectorate specifically identified and enfranchised by the 1866 Treaties...that is unless it is allowing the Cherokee Nation to do its dirty work for them, by making an end-run around the same said Treaties.
Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, maintains that the question now becomes; will any of the following use their Plenary Powers, Over-site Mandate and Stewardship Privileges over the Domestic Dependency [Cherokee Nation, as well the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Nation] to put an end to the fiction allowed to devastate Indian Freedmen at will, like that espoused by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Courtpptouted by it’s main proponent, Principal Chief Chadwick Smith.
What action will the following take; President, Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus, the U.S. Justice Department, Interior Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs. Will each allow such a blatant violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly Resolution 61.295 on 13 September 2007, ratified by the United States Government by President Barack Obama in December, 2010?.
The game, an enigma characterized in the past by de facto laws and social policies manifest in the present now by the introduction of a Cherokee Nation Supreme Court law that looks back to deprive rights (ex post facto laws) of Freedmen, all accomplished by metaphysical legerdemain that renders the 1866 Treaties, a chimera for Indian Freedmen.
Metaphysical Legerdemain refers to Magic, the use of mirrors and slight-of-hand tricks in order to manipulate “Appearances” to deceive the mind into believing what it‘s seeing, creating a classic struggle between your eyes, brain, perception, common sense and belief system. In this case the Magic, achieved by smoke and mirrors were undertaken by an entire national system controlled a racist mandate, whose sole intent is to deny African Ancestored Humanity (in the Americas) the tools to remain Sovereign. Instead we have been destabilized by forced detribalization, the domino effect of which is Statelessness, bereft of Political Representation, tenuous dependency upon pilfered U.S. Citizenship (as subsequent generations of Indian Freedmen began to seek U.S. Hospitals in which to give birth to their children, so they might attain some type of Citizenship after being rendered Stateless).
Forced Exile, Statelessness, Deprivation of Citizenship, Nationality and Land Ownership is the doorway to actual physical, emotional and social starvation.
Citizenship: Citizenship status that was legally conferred upon Cherokee Freedmen by an Act of the Cherokee Legislature, featuring an En Masse Adoption of their Class of Citizens in 1863 was revoked on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court in Oklahoma, effectively detribalizing the Ethnic Indians by stripping them of their historic Citizenship, Nationality and future eligibility as Citizens in the Nation of their ancestry.
The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court reversed and vacated an earlier Oklahoma District Court Decision by Judge John Cripps in their favor.
Instead the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court instituted a new ruling, which looks back and discriminates against a highly specific and unique entitlement group guaranteed enfranchisement by the 1866 Treaty with the Cherokee to have their Citizenship and Nationality preserved as an autonomous protectorate of the Tribe.
The Cherokee Freedmen have no other legal Nationality: In a move that was unique at the time, Historic Indian Freedmen (from all 5 Tribes), in order to secure a National Identity for their offspring of illegal exile in the 1940s (see Plecker Letters deny Black Indians legal Native American Nationality), began giving birth to their children in U.S. Hospitals, thereby gaining birth certificates for their progeny. The parents had only Tribal Citizenship and Tribal Midwife affidavits. Even at that, many of the Cherokee Freedmen had parents and/or Grandparents that were not U.S. Citizens and did not have U.S. Birth Certificates.
The issue, according to Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund of Enid, Oklahoma Spokesperson and Representative, Dr. Angela Molette, is not that Cherokee Freedmen are “non-Indians”, but that “Cherokee“ is their Nationality and the United States has just allowed the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma to strip Freedmen of their Citizenship and Nationality.
Molette says “their precise standing prior to being adopted by the Tribe, was as Cherokee Citizens with African Ancestry." They were characterized by the 1866 Treaty as “Persons formerly enslaved by any Cherokee,“ in addition to “Free Persons of Color” and “Freedmen.”.
All Ethnic (Black) Cherokees were granted Autonomy (within the Cherokee Domain) in their own Colony, Districts and Communities.
Chief Downing and Spring Frog (a descendant of the old Great Chief’s of Chota, boldly instituted the practice of adopting Ethnic (Black) Tribal Members) at Cowskin Prairie prior to the end of the Civil War in Indian Territory. Downing and Spring Frog were Union Loyalists in opposition to the rising contingent of Confederate Mixed Bloods-comprising the modern core of Cherokees in opposition to Black Tribal Members, led in the present day by Chief Chad Smith, referred to by Cherokee Freedmen, as a “White Indian”.
FOR CLARIFICATION, SOME DEFINITIONS OF TERMS ARE BELOW:
Legislative Act - an act passed by a legislative body: By an Act of the Cherokee Legislature in 1863, the Cherokee Freedmen were adopted as a matter of historical record, ahead of the end of the Civil War in Indian Territory.
Act or Enactment: A legal document codifying the result of deliberations of a committee or society or legislative body
Constitutional Amendment: A change to the Constitution of a nation or state, requiring a special procedure different from that used for enacting ordinary laws. (Extraordinary Law).
Legal Instrument: Legal document: (law) a document that states some contractual relationship or grants some rights (Princeton.edu)
Legal document: (Wikipedia)-A legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation, or right, and therefore evidences that act, process, or agreement. Examples include a certificate, deed, bond, contract, will, legislative act, notarial act, court writ or process
Naturalization: To grant citizenship to somebody of foreign birth, or to acquire citizenship in an adopted country.
Adoption: 1. In family law: Adoption is the legal process that establishes a parent/child relationship between individuals who are not related by blood. Once the adoption is completed, the adoptive child becomes entitled to all the privileges belonging to a natural child of the adoptive parents, and the adoptive parents acquire all the legal rights, duties and obligations of the child’s natural parents. All the legal rights, duties and obligations between the child and his or her natural parent terminates upon completion of the adoption.
2. In contract law: Adoption is acceptance by a person or entity of the rights and responsibilities made for their benefit under a contract to which he/she is not a party. And,
3. To accept legal responsibility for the act of another.[Webster’s Law Dictionary]
Ratify: to affirm or approve, usually after the fact.
Kinship: is established by blood, marriage, or adoption: family relationship. Relationship by nature or character. [Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology].
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples(Adopted by the General Assembly Resolution 61/295 on 3 September 2007) Ratified by the United States under President Barack Obama, December 2010
*Excerpts From Preamble
"Affirming that Indigenous Peoples are equal to all other peoples, while recognizing the rights of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such."
"Affirming also that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage of humankind."
"Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust."
"Reaffirming that Indigenous Peoples, in the exercise of their rights, should be free from discrimination of any kind."
"Concerned that Indigenous Peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a result of inter alia, their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising in particular, their right to development in accordance with their own needs and interests. "
"Considering also that treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements, and the relationship they represent, are the basis for a strengthened partnership between indigenous peoples and states."
Change: Ordinary People, effect Extraordinary Change Everyday. More People united for moral and just causes effect even greater change.
"The U.S. can't impose change (internationally) but bolster emerging efforts for positive reform."
The actions of the once oppressed Indian nations against pre-existing oppressed and exiled Indian Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes, is philosophically equivalent to the extinctional level events, deprivation of lands and restriction of movement towards the pursuit of happiness, as currently experienced by Palestinians in the Middle East...only its happening on U.S. Soil.
Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., on behalf of its constitutents categorically contends that:
We Oppose!
The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court Action
and All Negative Actions Levied Against
Ethnic Native Americans and Freedmen!
And Reassert The Demand a Presidential and/or Congressional Review and Intervention Into All Tribal, Federal Actions and Court Decisions Involving Freedmen of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole and allied Nations And, Invite all of our Supporters To Press The Executive U.S. Administration, Members of the Congress, Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Justice Department and Department of the Interior
Into Action To Change The Paradigm!
For more information contact: Dr. Angela Molette (Tuscaloosa Ohoyo) Black Warrior Woman; Principal Chief, United Tuscaloosa Band of the Choctaw Nation President, NAACP Unit #6126 Enid (Garfield County), Organizational Member-Harvest Institute Freedmen Federation of Washington, D.C.
Donate Today: Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.
http://www.blackindiansunited5tribesembassy.org/
Well,well, well, they finally did it! or they think they did. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma finally legislatively disenfranchised thousands of Black Indians who have been part of their nation for over three centuries. Notice I said legislatively, because BLOOD cannot be unmixed.
How insipid. How sad. How tragic. How ignorant. Wonder what kind of water they're drinking these days? Can't be the sweet water of Oklahoma. Maybe they've allowed the wacky weed to grow too close to the banks. Whatever it is, they have shown that when you let an Indian with white heritage become the so-called leader, racism can't be very far behind, can it? What is it about the white eyes and their racist genetic code? They seem to infect those they touch. They certainly infected Principal Chief Chad Smith (half-breed white - oops, did I say that out loud?), the miscreant who made this cockamamie proposal.
Talk about divide and conquer. And you thought Blacks were the only ones who fell prey to such machinations. Look around you, guys. In addition to all out war, extermination and genocide, it appears that a fair amount of divide and conquer is what's keeping my brothers and sisters from taking a stand in regard to this racist situation.
Indeed, it was the promise by some nefarious rep-ugh-blicans that they would not be able to receive monetary benefits, because the Blacks in the tribe would then be able to construe it as "reparations for slavery" that sparked this whole mess to begin with. Under the impression that getting the Blacks off the rolls would then make it possible for them to reap heap big dollars, they have proceeded on a course of action that not to many of the tribe agreed with. But the tantalization of dollars dangled in front of them have turned those who were initially reluctant into supporters.
Congresswoman Diane Watson, D. California, had been a critical foe in this regard, and held panels during the Congressional Black Caucus to highlight what was going on low under the radar. Margaret Vann of Oklahoma, and a descendent of Black Indians was one of the key panelist. Congresswoman Watson, who was originally from Oklahoma, and of Black and Choctaw heritage, had introduced legislation aimed at stopping the Cherokees from going forward with the disenfranchisement; there were stiff penalties, including loss of federal dollars to be imposed should they succeed. Now that she has stepped down, and Karen Bass has assumed the mantle, one wonders whether she will be as ardent and vociferous in making sure they don't get away with modern day segregation.
Interesting, isn't it? The disenfranchised disenfranchising those who have stuck with them for hundreds of years? Many have heard of the Trail of Tears, during which thousands of Cherokees and Indians of other nations were pushed off their lands and sent westward to what is now known as Oklahoma, under Andrew Jackson, then president of the United States, in order to give the land to white settlers.
The land they were being sent to, Oklahoma, which literally means "land of the Red people" was part of the Louisiana Purchase, acquired when the French decided to leave the United States and this part of the hemisphere, after the Haitians kicked their butts in 1804. The French realized they were no match for the Haitians when they came running through the fire they had set to burn the island down, during a battle. The sight of those Black men and women scared the beejeebers out of them, and they went scurrying back to France in much the same way Strauss-Kahn is doing now after having tried to rape an African maid (it appears that individually and collectively cowardice is part of their collective gene pool - but I digress). The French hurried up and got out of Dodge, and after making the best deal they could, cut bait and went back to things French.
A fair amount of Black people, who were then slaves to the Indians who were being pushed out of the south, traveled on that smallpox ridden trek to Oklahoma. Though some perished, a fairly large amount survived, and eventually married into the tribes. Another wave of African descended slaves who sneaked out of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri (long before the Civil War), and other surrounding slave states - such as my family did - likewise stole away to Oklahoma for freedom, since it was the only place in the US at that time that whites were not allowed to go. Those also intermarried with the Indian families there.
Oklahoma had gone from a reservation for Cherokees to the place where the Five Civilized Tribes (Chocktaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminoles), as well as smaller tribes, now resided "LEGALLY", on their own set aside lands (you-all remember set asides don't you? It's that little portion the feds give you to make up for the fact that they have been cheating you all along - but it's generally got a piece of elastic tied to it, and when it looks like you're doing too well, they jerk it back. Anywaaaaaay...)
They were considered "civilized" because they adopted many of the white man's ways, and had educational centers, constitutions, and,thanks to Sequoiah, could actually read their own language. This was opposed to those Indians who recognized the whites for the threats they really were and routinely opened up a can of whip-ass in an effort to keep them from stealing their lands. Unfortunately, the inevitable "manifest destiny" ruled out this as an effective methodology. Now, nearly extinct, these valiant warriors and their descendents have been relegated to some of the worst lands in different parts of the US, where the grass is no longer green and the water that does flow is pretty putrid.
This latest salvo at Black Indians would be comical if it wasn't so heinous. How do you unmix blood? Even the white eyes know that by law one tenth of one per cent of Black blood makes you Black; and by extension, the same is probably true in terms of making you Indian. They sure went out of their way to identify those whites who were part Indian. Most of them got the boot.
So now here we stand, in what is known as a "mexican stand-off." No matter which way you move, somebody is going to get whacked. And as far as I'm concerned, better them than us. Particularly in this instance. It is now time for Blacks, whether you have Indian in your family or not (and you know, we almost all do, because those early slaves would never have survived had it not been for our Indian counterparts), IT'S TIME TO GO ON THE WARPATH!!
It's time for the NAACP, SCLC, Urban League, as well as Blacks individually and collectively, to come down on them and let them know what time it is. No more nice guy; no more panels; no more discussions. No one, within the shores of the United States of America, as it is constituted at this time gets to disenfranchize or segregate Black people.
As a Black woman of Indian heritage - Cherokee, Crow, Creek, I am quite frankly, pissed off. Having grown up in a city where all these heritages honored each other, it is clear to me that this has been engineered over a long, deliberate period of time. We who went to Anadarko every year, or who celebrated our mutual lines in so many other ways, are appalled to find that the so-called youth have gotten into the fray and totally screwed things up. I call on the elders to sanction them, take back the reigns, and put things right before there is a total conflagration in Oklahoma. It will make the Oklahoma Ruin (er, Run) look like a cake walk. You remember that, don't you - April 22, 1889, the day when they opened up our land to whites and pushed us off to marginal lands; taking and uprooting everything we had. Had the tribes not been so "civilized" maybe things would have worked out differently. Now it appears that the "civilized" factor is allowing for fascism to take hold. We are the only ones (Black Indians) to have been disenfranchized twice - once for being Black, and second for being Indian. So for those who think that Black people who claim their Indian heritage (by the way notice that no where in here did I say "Native American") are trying to escape being Black, better think again. Either way, under the current system, we are the targets.
So my Cherokee Brothers and Sisters, my African American Brothers and Sisters You Better Wake Up Now!
Take a look at your population stats. The Five Civilized Tribes and the Blacks who settled after 1865 (Civil War) made up 100% of Oklahoma's population. We all thrived. We lived and worked together successfully; had rich harvests, thriving towns and cities. We basically were happy. Now, of course, that's quite a bit before my time, but I heard stories from my Grandmother (full blooded Cherokee), and my Grandfather (Full Blooded Black Man), as well as my great aunts and uncles - about how wonderful things were "back in the day." (Check out the move "Posse", by the Hudlin Brothers to get a sense of where I'm coming from). Who do you think caused the Oklahoma dust bowl, that caused the land to blow away, wiped out crops, caused people to starve, and sent those very same white settlers scurrying for California after they decimated some of the most arable (read, fertile) land in the area? We remained, we continued to till our land, we continued to thrive. Oklahoma used to have 67 all Black Towns; 13 of them still remain! Even in the days when we weren't "bosom buddies" we definitely weren't sworn enemies either.
In this day and age of global relationships, the Oklahoma region of the Cherokee nation is more reflective of Jim Crowism than anything else. That this must be stopped immediately is an understatement.
Below is an excerpt from Black Indian Magazine covering this latest attempt. Please read it carefully. Because if they are able to succeed segregating us in Oklahoma, can the nation be far behind - particularly under a Rep-ugh-blican run Congress? Think about it!!
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
[TheBlackList] Appearances: Black Indians-Cherokee Freedmen Stripped of Citizenship
by Angela Finley Molette (Tuscaloosa Warrior Woman) as excerpted from BlackIndian Magazine
One must consider that a gentrified Native American Nation, in collusion with the highest levels of U.S. Government, driven by the appointed superiority of persons of a certain mindset and foundation to change the appearance of an entire aboriginal species on the Continent, has nearly succeeded in their task.
“the core philosophic foundation behind a modern racist perception management program; of wherein which the perceptions of black people are being covertly negatively shaped as a means of defending and maintaining white dominance and control.” [Franklin Jones, aka Tha Nubian, 2011].
Ergo, the appearance of descendants of Aboriginal Ethnic Cherokees having African Blood has been re-cast negatively in revisionist media-driven commentary as “non-Indians” by “the modern manifestation of the original Cherokee Nation,” so described by Principal Chief Chadwick Smith, himself a lineal descendant of mixed blood (White/Native American) Confederate Cherokees (read; losers of the Civil War in Indian Territory).
This is happening to Ethnic Cherokees (popularly known as Cherokee Freedmen) despite being legally thrust “as Indians” to dwell within the historic Indian Country by hundreds of years of permissive and legalized Naturalization through residence, birth, death, marriage, adoption, land ownership and enfranchisement by the Union Loyalist Faction of Cherokee Nation in the Tribal geographical Treaty-mandated domain of Indian Country, and finally Indian Territory (under the jurisdiction and legal sphere of influence) of the so-called “Indian Nations” of the 5 Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma.
The Enfranchisement of Ethnic Cherokees, in full acknowledgement of their African Ancestry, former condition of Enslavement, Servitude, Free Persons of Color status and their 1863 Adoption by the Cherokee Nation Legislature, was memorialized by the Cherokee Treaty with the United States inscribed at the Nations Capital in Washington, D.C., in 1866 and apparently also entered as a Constitutional Amendment to boot.
Principal Chief Chad Smith, a self-appointed opponent of Ethnic Cherokees, presided over a Media Campaign created to aid in smoothing over the mean-spirited, racist and immoral tenor of the Cherokee Nation campaign against Cherokees of African Ancestry seeking modern Citizenship validation based upon eligibility derived by their ancestry and lineal descent. He introduced much more socially palatable language in efforts to “terminate the Citizenship and eligibility of non-Indians.“ Except that the overwhelming number of terminated Cherokee “non-Indians” are those Cherokee Nationals having African Ancestry and there is no equal and opposite program to terminate the Citizenship of the vast number of Cherokees (250,000+) having Caucasian or other ancestry.
The insidious Cherokee Media Management Campaign was instituted after throwing the gauntlet down against the enrollment of Ethnic Cherokees. Chief Smith consulted with a myriad of high powered legal eagles who suggested that Media Management Campaign re-center the Chief’s campaign to make Freedmen Campaign for enfranchisement to be a test of Cherokee Nation Sovereignty, amid a persistent roaring din of racial aspersions cast, including; “Racist Cherokees White-washing Cherokee Nation History” and the “Modern Tribes giving themselves the power to erase the Ethnicity of African Ancestored Cherokees due to fears of being viewed as Black too“, Indian Reservations are Black-Free Zones sanctioned by the U.S.A., and Indian Apartheid, etc.
During the 2009 Federal BAR Association Conference at the ultra-glitzy Skirvin Hotel, downtown Oklahoma City near Bricktown, an Oklahoma entertainment mecca built by the overlords of the failed Indian State of Sequoyah on reclaimed/gentrified lands once held by the poorest most poverty-stricken Black Descendants in the entire State, the Conference Chairperson gagged the Representative of the Cherokee Freedmen Band, Marilyn Vann to keep her from speaking freely during the public event (held in non-Court Room Venue).
Vann's goal was to present the Cherokee Freedmen perspective in the midst of an assemblage of the brightest legal minds in the Nation, in a conference segment promoted as “a debate” between Cherokee Chief Chad Smith and the esteemed Dr. Charles Ogletree, Mentor of President and Mrs. Barack Obama. He gently encouraged the Cherokee Chief to see this struggle as a once in a lifetime Teachable Moment, the kind that goes down in history, attached to Great Men and Women.
At that point, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation looked at Ogletree as if he wanted to pierce the impeccable and learned Black Man’s soul with his eyes. It was a historic Teachable moment alright, it taught us that we were in for the fight of our lives with a very wealthy nation, while we were the most destitute in a land of plenty,
The Chief of the 2nd wealthiest Tribal Nation in America, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma was allowed to speak freely (even though he was a defendant in a suit lodged by Vann), but before he said one word, Chad Smith introduced his anti-Freedmen Campaign Video that showed healthy happy Cherokees (including the mixed Black children of enrolled modern Cherokee Women). The knowledgable in the room recognized the difference between those children and persons of Cherokee Freedmen Ancestry. The Mother’s of the children in the video trace their lineage back to Cherokees without African Ancestry. The modern Cherokee women choosing to have children by Black Men have nothing what so ever to do with historic Freedmen Ancestry. Yet Smith’s Media Campaign Video challenge the unlearned mind to make that leap, which the average man cannot make without knowing Cherokee History.
I suppose to assuage their guilt, the Moderator allowed me to speak, which was much more irritating to Chief Smith, because my Representation and Advocacy is for all Indian Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes, not just the Cherokees.
“Today the U.S. Government, as with many other white governed nations now uses media driven perception management programs to defend and maintain their position of white dominance and control. The U.S. media’s racially devaluing depictions and distorted portrayal of its Black population that amplifies the negative to the point that it distorts reality is a deliberate government deplored perception management program. It is purposefully designed to imply the superiority of its whites populous over its Black; therefore creating internalized -self-contemptuous- responses within its Black population that hinders their Black unity, upward mobility and manipulate them to accept white dominance over their lives. It also reinforces seemingly pre-conditioned response of resentment and prejudicial images of Black people in the majority population, thereby creating a false impression of wanton Black criminality and violence. This creates conditioned responses in its population for eventualities to unfold against its targeted Black populous without opposition or resentment.
Dr. Edward Bernays, a mass manipulation and propaganda specialist hired by several U.S. presidents describes this process by saying that: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of a group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it."
“The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) describes "perception management" as a type of psychological operation intended to provoke the behavior you want out of a given individual or targeted group collectively. Perception management through propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, and direct behavior of a population to achieve responses that furthers the desired intent of the Government.”
Franklin Jones aka Thanubian www.divineBlacktruth.org
Based upon our interpretation of the Wednesday, August 24, 2011 Headline News regarding their specific (unique) Ethnic origins, Cherokee Freedmen were classed in summary judgment by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court as “non-Indians” and “Descendants of Slaves,“ made Citizens merely by “an 1866 Constitutional Amendment” ahead of being stripped of their Cherokee Citizenship, Nationality and exiled against International Prohibition of that action, as the final move in a devastatingly slick end game created by a First Nation Democracy, intended for the purpose.
Interpretation of the Revoked Citizenship of Ethnic Cherokees
Let us be clear about what is really happening to Ethnic Cherokees (as well as Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes), they have been forcefully stripped of their Tribal Citizenship, Nationality, Exiled and rendered Stateless, not for legitimate reasons, like treason, sedition or an attempt to overthrow their Tribal Government. Rather, Indian Freedmen find themselves legally banished (in 2011) by a retroactive law introduced by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court, so rendered ostensibly because “citizenship was extended to the freedmen by an 1866 Cherokee constitutional amendment--not the treaty--and that Judge Cripps did not have the authority to overturn its results.“
Well, according to Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., it’s Enid, Oklahoma Spokesperson and Representative, Dr. Angela Molette (Tuscaloosa Ohoyo) Black Warrior Woman, says; “the official Media account provides only the partial truth about Cherokee Freedmen Citizenship (which makes us question whether or not the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court was also dealing only with a partial truth also), that being…persons formerly enslaved by any Cherokee, as well as Free Persons of Color never having been in enslaved, but living within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation prior to 1861, gained legally indefeasible Citizenship by surety of an En Masse Adoption in 1863, at Cowskin Prairie by the Special Act of the Cherokee Legislature, led by Chief Downing and Spring Frog (a Dignitary and lineal descendant of the old Great Chiefs of Chota).
That’s three full years before the Legislative Enactment was included in the 1866 Cherokee Constitution, making their Citizenship inalienable by Naturalization.”
In completion of the 1863 Legislative Enactment, the original Cherokee Nation Legislature invoked the 1866 Constitutional Amendment to confirm the Legislative Enactment, En Masse Adoption and Inclusion of Cherokee Freedmen as fully enfranchised Equal Citizens by the 1866 Cherokee Treaty with the United States of America.
“In that light, one begins to see clearly the fiction in the new Cherokee Nation Supreme Court Decision. The Cherokee Freedmen have been banished, exiled and have now suffered legal termination of their historic Cherokee Citizenship and true Indigenous Nationality, because of their African Admixture, Ethnic Origin and Historic Previous Condition of Servitude.
The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court just used Magic (built upon racism) to execute an Ex Post Facto Law to deprive them of their 1866 Treaty Rights, Citizenship, Indigenous Nationality and access to benefits and entitlements for which ‘Indians’ are eligible.”
The Magic: Depriving Cherokee Freedmen of their True Nationality. Despite their International Human Right to a Nationality and Self-Identification, Freedmen were classed in summary judgment by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court as “non-Cherokees,” “non-Indians” and “Descendants of Slaves,” because of the way the attained their Nationality,” which was incredibly…through a Constitutional Amendment. Even if that was all, why should that be perceived as tenuous, unsecured and revocable for the flimsiest of reasons? Isn’t that how U.S. Slaves received their Citizenship in America?
The second act of the Magic Show was the characterize the Freedmen struggle for Enfranchisement as an affront, assault and challenge to Cherokee National Sovereignty and its right to choose its Citizens. But the Cherokee Nation right to choose Citizens cannot outweigh the rights of an entitlement group enfranchised by Treaty, nor shall Cherokee Nation Laws be steeped in historic racism, insinuating that a Constitutional Amendment was not forceful enough law to maintain eligibility to Citizenship while at the same time ignoring Birthright and Adoption. Nor can installation or use of Ex Post Facto Laws be implemented to deprive certain groups of historic legal Treaty, Citizenship and Nationality Rights. Finally, simply because the Cherokee Nation in rebellion, does not also mean that the United States is relieved of its duty to protect the rights of an Ethnic Protectorate specifically identified and enfranchised by the 1866 Treaties...that is unless it is allowing the Cherokee Nation to do its dirty work for them, by making an end-run around the same said Treaties.
Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, maintains that the question now becomes; will any of the following use their Plenary Powers, Over-site Mandate and Stewardship Privileges over the Domestic Dependency [Cherokee Nation, as well the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Nation] to put an end to the fiction allowed to devastate Indian Freedmen at will, like that espoused by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Courtpptouted by it’s main proponent, Principal Chief Chadwick Smith.
What action will the following take; President, Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus, the U.S. Justice Department, Interior Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs. Will each allow such a blatant violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly Resolution 61.295 on 13 September 2007, ratified by the United States Government by President Barack Obama in December, 2010?.
The game, an enigma characterized in the past by de facto laws and social policies manifest in the present now by the introduction of a Cherokee Nation Supreme Court law that looks back to deprive rights (ex post facto laws) of Freedmen, all accomplished by metaphysical legerdemain that renders the 1866 Treaties, a chimera for Indian Freedmen.
Metaphysical Legerdemain refers to Magic, the use of mirrors and slight-of-hand tricks in order to manipulate “Appearances” to deceive the mind into believing what it‘s seeing, creating a classic struggle between your eyes, brain, perception, common sense and belief system. In this case the Magic, achieved by smoke and mirrors were undertaken by an entire national system controlled a racist mandate, whose sole intent is to deny African Ancestored Humanity (in the Americas) the tools to remain Sovereign. Instead we have been destabilized by forced detribalization, the domino effect of which is Statelessness, bereft of Political Representation, tenuous dependency upon pilfered U.S. Citizenship (as subsequent generations of Indian Freedmen began to seek U.S. Hospitals in which to give birth to their children, so they might attain some type of Citizenship after being rendered Stateless).
Forced Exile, Statelessness, Deprivation of Citizenship, Nationality and Land Ownership is the doorway to actual physical, emotional and social starvation.
Citizenship: Citizenship status that was legally conferred upon Cherokee Freedmen by an Act of the Cherokee Legislature, featuring an En Masse Adoption of their Class of Citizens in 1863 was revoked on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court in Oklahoma, effectively detribalizing the Ethnic Indians by stripping them of their historic Citizenship, Nationality and future eligibility as Citizens in the Nation of their ancestry.
The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court reversed and vacated an earlier Oklahoma District Court Decision by Judge John Cripps in their favor.
Instead the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court instituted a new ruling, which looks back and discriminates against a highly specific and unique entitlement group guaranteed enfranchisement by the 1866 Treaty with the Cherokee to have their Citizenship and Nationality preserved as an autonomous protectorate of the Tribe.
The Cherokee Freedmen have no other legal Nationality: In a move that was unique at the time, Historic Indian Freedmen (from all 5 Tribes), in order to secure a National Identity for their offspring of illegal exile in the 1940s (see Plecker Letters deny Black Indians legal Native American Nationality), began giving birth to their children in U.S. Hospitals, thereby gaining birth certificates for their progeny. The parents had only Tribal Citizenship and Tribal Midwife affidavits. Even at that, many of the Cherokee Freedmen had parents and/or Grandparents that were not U.S. Citizens and did not have U.S. Birth Certificates.
The issue, according to Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund of Enid, Oklahoma Spokesperson and Representative, Dr. Angela Molette, is not that Cherokee Freedmen are “non-Indians”, but that “Cherokee“ is their Nationality and the United States has just allowed the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma to strip Freedmen of their Citizenship and Nationality.
Molette says “their precise standing prior to being adopted by the Tribe, was as Cherokee Citizens with African Ancestry." They were characterized by the 1866 Treaty as “Persons formerly enslaved by any Cherokee,“ in addition to “Free Persons of Color” and “Freedmen.”.
All Ethnic (Black) Cherokees were granted Autonomy (within the Cherokee Domain) in their own Colony, Districts and Communities.
Chief Downing and Spring Frog (a descendant of the old Great Chief’s of Chota, boldly instituted the practice of adopting Ethnic (Black) Tribal Members) at Cowskin Prairie prior to the end of the Civil War in Indian Territory. Downing and Spring Frog were Union Loyalists in opposition to the rising contingent of Confederate Mixed Bloods-comprising the modern core of Cherokees in opposition to Black Tribal Members, led in the present day by Chief Chad Smith, referred to by Cherokee Freedmen, as a “White Indian”.
FOR CLARIFICATION, SOME DEFINITIONS OF TERMS ARE BELOW:
Legislative Act - an act passed by a legislative body: By an Act of the Cherokee Legislature in 1863, the Cherokee Freedmen were adopted as a matter of historical record, ahead of the end of the Civil War in Indian Territory.
Act or Enactment: A legal document codifying the result of deliberations of a committee or society or legislative body
Constitutional Amendment: A change to the Constitution of a nation or state, requiring a special procedure different from that used for enacting ordinary laws. (Extraordinary Law).
Legal Instrument: Legal document: (law) a document that states some contractual relationship or grants some rights (Princeton.edu)
Legal document: (Wikipedia)-A legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation, or right, and therefore evidences that act, process, or agreement. Examples include a certificate, deed, bond, contract, will, legislative act, notarial act, court writ or process
Naturalization: To grant citizenship to somebody of foreign birth, or to acquire citizenship in an adopted country.
Adoption: 1. In family law: Adoption is the legal process that establishes a parent/child relationship between individuals who are not related by blood. Once the adoption is completed, the adoptive child becomes entitled to all the privileges belonging to a natural child of the adoptive parents, and the adoptive parents acquire all the legal rights, duties and obligations of the child’s natural parents. All the legal rights, duties and obligations between the child and his or her natural parent terminates upon completion of the adoption.
2. In contract law: Adoption is acceptance by a person or entity of the rights and responsibilities made for their benefit under a contract to which he/she is not a party. And,
3. To accept legal responsibility for the act of another.[Webster’s Law Dictionary]
Ratify: to affirm or approve, usually after the fact.
Kinship: is established by blood, marriage, or adoption: family relationship. Relationship by nature or character. [Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology].
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples(Adopted by the General Assembly Resolution 61/295 on 3 September 2007) Ratified by the United States under President Barack Obama, December 2010
*Excerpts From Preamble
"Affirming that Indigenous Peoples are equal to all other peoples, while recognizing the rights of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such."
"Affirming also that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage of humankind."
"Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust."
"Reaffirming that Indigenous Peoples, in the exercise of their rights, should be free from discrimination of any kind."
"Concerned that Indigenous Peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a result of inter alia, their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising in particular, their right to development in accordance with their own needs and interests. "
"Considering also that treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements, and the relationship they represent, are the basis for a strengthened partnership between indigenous peoples and states."
Change: Ordinary People, effect Extraordinary Change Everyday. More People united for moral and just causes effect even greater change.
"The U.S. can't impose change (internationally) but bolster emerging efforts for positive reform."
The actions of the once oppressed Indian nations against pre-existing oppressed and exiled Indian Freedmen of the 5 Civilized Tribes, is philosophically equivalent to the extinctional level events, deprivation of lands and restriction of movement towards the pursuit of happiness, as currently experienced by Palestinians in the Middle East...only its happening on U.S. Soil.
Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., on behalf of its constitutents categorically contends that:
We Oppose!
The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court Action
and All Negative Actions Levied Against
Ethnic Native Americans and Freedmen!
And Reassert The Demand a Presidential and/or Congressional Review and Intervention Into All Tribal, Federal Actions and Court Decisions Involving Freedmen of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole and allied Nations And, Invite all of our Supporters To Press The Executive U.S. Administration, Members of the Congress, Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Justice Department and Department of the Interior
Into Action To Change The Paradigm!
For more information contact: Dr. Angela Molette (Tuscaloosa Ohoyo) Black Warrior Woman; Principal Chief, United Tuscaloosa Band of the Choctaw Nation President, NAACP Unit #6126 Enid (Garfield County), Organizational Member-Harvest Institute Freedmen Federation of Washington, D.C.
Donate Today: Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.
http://www.blackindiansunited5tribesembassy.org/
Farewell Nick Ashford
By Gloria Dulan-Wilson
The sudden demise of Nick Ashford has left us all in a daze of sorts. To say that it was totally unexpected is an understatement in so many ways. To my knowledge, none of us who were devotess of the Ashford and Simpson dynamic duo had any inkling that he was ill.
During my last visit to the Sugar Bar, I and several friends, sat upstairs during their famed Open Mike Night Thursday, with Nick, where we laughed, joked, and watched several hopefuls as they either crashed and burned, or blew us away with their talents.
I remember vaguely regretting not having brought my camera with me that evening because Nick was in rare form.
Valerie sat downstairs as usual, and provided harmony and back up for many of the artistic wannabees, with the able assistance of Kathy Jordan (formerly Sharpton), who was once a featured artist with James Brown. All in all it was a fun evening. Needless to say we closed the down the place in typical New York style - the last ones to leave!
And while they had some great predecessors in terms of dynamic duos are concerned: Marvin Gaye & Tammie Terrell, Peaches & Herb husband and wife duos are indeed rare. Marilyn McCoo and Billie Davis Jr. had some wonderful successes, but eventually faded from the horizon.
However, I can't remember a time when the Ashford and Simpson team wasn't successful. When this match made in heaven wasn't topping the charts with their combined lyrical and vocal stylings, they were writing, styling or backing up other groups. They even performed back up on an early album recorded by Mandrill. Lou Wilson in remembering those days, stated, "Nick Ashford, what a great talent! May he rest in peace. The world has lost a giant in the music industry." Those days, nearly 40 years ago, each group was in their infancy, finding their way onto the horizon of success.
To my mind Ashford and Simpson was a hit from day one! My first personal introduction to them was when they performed for a gala put together by Essence Magazine during the early days of the Essence Awards (y'all remember those days, right? I totally miss them.) Nick and Val (which was our affectionate names for them) performed, despite the fact that the venue did not have the proper equipment, and things had run behind time. They never complained, and gave us their best as though they were in front of a 5,000 seat audience. That's when I first began to admire them.
Now of course, Motown Mogul, Berry Gordy thought they walked on water. Writing for Diana Ross, and so many others in the pantheon of that rarified music val halla also put them on the map. It truly was as though there was nothing they couldn't do, write, or sing. Every thing they did had "hit" written all over it!
On the other hand, while they were rocking the musical realm, they did have a turn at "failure" as well. Do you remember the days when they opened their first supper club, "20-20", located at 20 West 20th Street? It was an elegant posh venue. They featured the bestin entertainment and talent. There was only one tiny little problem: the chef did not understand "soul" cuisine, and had a problem cooking food to the appropriate doneness for the Afrocentric palate. As a result, the club eventually folded.
Nick took it in stride. He admitted that he had learned some valuable lessons from the previous foray into the world or restaurant and entertainment. And what a difference it was. He stated that his investment advisors had meant it as a "tax write-off, but they didn't realize that Val and I wanted it to be a real gathering place where people could come and enjoy themselves, and the food. I won't make that mistake again!"
Lessons learned from that early foray were obvious, because The Sugar Bar is a tremendous hit! The African inspired decor in the Sugar Bar was from Nick Ashford's own creative genius. From the Africentric bathrooms, chairs, railings, bars, the thatched ceiling trim; to his own personal, eclectic collection of artifacts from all over Africa, the place was a delight to the eye. You could not look anywhere and not be inspired by the organic integration of African tradition with African American modernity. I loved it! And so did everyone else. Nick probably had no idea how much time we would spend going over the symbology of the many African pieces he had in the restaurant.
I frequently complimented him on his taste and his eye, and recommended that he do a book on Afrocentric decor or something of that nature. It was our standing joke (well maybe a joke for him, I was serious. I wished I could combine cultures and colors the way he had done). And I wish he had taken me up on doing that book!
It was also evident that the Sugar Bar became an extension of the greater Black community. Nick and Val were as much tied in with what was going with us as they were with the entertainment realm, and made it a point to be involved with issues at various levels. These cultural icons likewise revered other icons in their own right, and hosted an annual tribute to the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, reminding us all of the role and contribution this great diva made to us all. They opened their doors and hearts throughout the years to so many who were either on the pathway up, or trying not to slide down the ladder of success.
It goes without saying that from the very beginning of their collaboration, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson have been a hit and inspiration, an example, and a success to be emulated and admired. Most marriages don't last as long as theirs had - 38 years! But to have also been married partners, is truly a formula for success that is to be aspired to. Definitely one that many of us have envied. They made it work, without making it look like work. Now there's an example to follow.
My condolences to you, Val. Metaphysically speaking we say there is no such thing as "loss", but our all too human hearts strongly beg to differ, because the pain of that loss is palpable nevertheless. To say that Nick is in a better place, that he has made his transition, that he has gone to be with the Lord, are all appropriate at this time, but are cold comfort when you have to reach out and touch him; or turn to make a comment on some thought, or new song that just sprang to mind. It does not help when that ever bright smile of his does not greet you in the morning; or is not the last thing you see at night. There is much to be treasured of the times two you spent together: the fun, the collaboration, the success, the creative exchanges - what a blessing to have had the time together as the most dynamic duo, husband/wife tour de force revered by all of us.
My sincere & heartfelt condolences to you, as well as my blessings to you and your immediate family; and to the many of us who considered ourselves part of your extended family of brothers, sisters to both you and Nick. But also my congratulations to you for having been such a dynamic duo and inspiration to admirers the world over.
I already know that Nick is not "resting". We know that no spirit ever truly dies, and that creative spirit of his is definitely in full effect carrying forth in the same vibrancy he enjoyed on this plane of action. And so it is!
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLESSED
With Love From
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
The sudden demise of Nick Ashford has left us all in a daze of sorts. To say that it was totally unexpected is an understatement in so many ways. To my knowledge, none of us who were devotess of the Ashford and Simpson dynamic duo had any inkling that he was ill.
During my last visit to the Sugar Bar, I and several friends, sat upstairs during their famed Open Mike Night Thursday, with Nick, where we laughed, joked, and watched several hopefuls as they either crashed and burned, or blew us away with their talents.
I remember vaguely regretting not having brought my camera with me that evening because Nick was in rare form.
Valerie sat downstairs as usual, and provided harmony and back up for many of the artistic wannabees, with the able assistance of Kathy Jordan (formerly Sharpton), who was once a featured artist with James Brown. All in all it was a fun evening. Needless to say we closed the down the place in typical New York style - the last ones to leave!
And while they had some great predecessors in terms of dynamic duos are concerned: Marvin Gaye & Tammie Terrell, Peaches & Herb husband and wife duos are indeed rare. Marilyn McCoo and Billie Davis Jr. had some wonderful successes, but eventually faded from the horizon.
However, I can't remember a time when the Ashford and Simpson team wasn't successful. When this match made in heaven wasn't topping the charts with their combined lyrical and vocal stylings, they were writing, styling or backing up other groups. They even performed back up on an early album recorded by Mandrill. Lou Wilson in remembering those days, stated, "Nick Ashford, what a great talent! May he rest in peace. The world has lost a giant in the music industry." Those days, nearly 40 years ago, each group was in their infancy, finding their way onto the horizon of success.
To my mind Ashford and Simpson was a hit from day one! My first personal introduction to them was when they performed for a gala put together by Essence Magazine during the early days of the Essence Awards (y'all remember those days, right? I totally miss them.) Nick and Val (which was our affectionate names for them) performed, despite the fact that the venue did not have the proper equipment, and things had run behind time. They never complained, and gave us their best as though they were in front of a 5,000 seat audience. That's when I first began to admire them.
Now of course, Motown Mogul, Berry Gordy thought they walked on water. Writing for Diana Ross, and so many others in the pantheon of that rarified music val halla also put them on the map. It truly was as though there was nothing they couldn't do, write, or sing. Every thing they did had "hit" written all over it!
On the other hand, while they were rocking the musical realm, they did have a turn at "failure" as well. Do you remember the days when they opened their first supper club, "20-20", located at 20 West 20th Street? It was an elegant posh venue. They featured the bestin entertainment and talent. There was only one tiny little problem: the chef did not understand "soul" cuisine, and had a problem cooking food to the appropriate doneness for the Afrocentric palate. As a result, the club eventually folded.
Nick took it in stride. He admitted that he had learned some valuable lessons from the previous foray into the world or restaurant and entertainment. And what a difference it was. He stated that his investment advisors had meant it as a "tax write-off, but they didn't realize that Val and I wanted it to be a real gathering place where people could come and enjoy themselves, and the food. I won't make that mistake again!"
Lessons learned from that early foray were obvious, because The Sugar Bar is a tremendous hit! The African inspired decor in the Sugar Bar was from Nick Ashford's own creative genius. From the Africentric bathrooms, chairs, railings, bars, the thatched ceiling trim; to his own personal, eclectic collection of artifacts from all over Africa, the place was a delight to the eye. You could not look anywhere and not be inspired by the organic integration of African tradition with African American modernity. I loved it! And so did everyone else. Nick probably had no idea how much time we would spend going over the symbology of the many African pieces he had in the restaurant.
I frequently complimented him on his taste and his eye, and recommended that he do a book on Afrocentric decor or something of that nature. It was our standing joke (well maybe a joke for him, I was serious. I wished I could combine cultures and colors the way he had done). And I wish he had taken me up on doing that book!
It was also evident that the Sugar Bar became an extension of the greater Black community. Nick and Val were as much tied in with what was going with us as they were with the entertainment realm, and made it a point to be involved with issues at various levels. These cultural icons likewise revered other icons in their own right, and hosted an annual tribute to the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, reminding us all of the role and contribution this great diva made to us all. They opened their doors and hearts throughout the years to so many who were either on the pathway up, or trying not to slide down the ladder of success.
It goes without saying that from the very beginning of their collaboration, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson have been a hit and inspiration, an example, and a success to be emulated and admired. Most marriages don't last as long as theirs had - 38 years! But to have also been married partners, is truly a formula for success that is to be aspired to. Definitely one that many of us have envied. They made it work, without making it look like work. Now there's an example to follow.
My condolences to you, Val. Metaphysically speaking we say there is no such thing as "loss", but our all too human hearts strongly beg to differ, because the pain of that loss is palpable nevertheless. To say that Nick is in a better place, that he has made his transition, that he has gone to be with the Lord, are all appropriate at this time, but are cold comfort when you have to reach out and touch him; or turn to make a comment on some thought, or new song that just sprang to mind. It does not help when that ever bright smile of his does not greet you in the morning; or is not the last thing you see at night. There is much to be treasured of the times two you spent together: the fun, the collaboration, the success, the creative exchanges - what a blessing to have had the time together as the most dynamic duo, husband/wife tour de force revered by all of us.
My sincere & heartfelt condolences to you, as well as my blessings to you and your immediate family; and to the many of us who considered ourselves part of your extended family of brothers, sisters to both you and Nick. But also my congratulations to you for having been such a dynamic duo and inspiration to admirers the world over.
I already know that Nick is not "resting". We know that no spirit ever truly dies, and that creative spirit of his is definitely in full effect carrying forth in the same vibrancy he enjoyed on this plane of action. And so it is!
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLESSED
With Love From
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
8.27.2011
ABOUT GLORIA DULAN-WILSON
by Gloria Dulan-Wilson
WHO I AM
Eclectically and Avidly Black Woman of Elegance. Proud Mother of three beautiful young adults. Grand Mother of five grandpeople. Former wife of an "Ape" (Lou Wilson of Mandrill); Former African dance artist; Always an educator & counselor, community activist. Writing since age 3, (and my handwriting never got any better). Feature writer/photo Journalist; Public Speaker.
Of Black & American Indian heritage, originally from Oklahoma City, OK, with family bloodlines from Cherokee, Crowe and Creek Nations (Five Civilized Tribes) & Proud Of It (despite the racist efforts of white indians to put us out)!
Party Animal who enjoys the company of my fellow New Yorkers and the international set (Africa, Caribbean, Brazilian, Japanese, etc); love good comedy, good people, great friends.
A child of the 60s, I was raised in the NAACP Youth Council; participated in sit-ins, the Civil Rights Movement in Oklahoma, Virginia, Philadelphia, and New York, Activist and Advocate for Black Empowerment & Unity Worldwide. Named one 25 Phenomenal Black Women Writers of 2010 by Our Times Press; and Phenomenal Woman of New York Global Biz Magazine 2011.
MY FAVORITE MOVIES:
"Sayonara", "Carmen Jones", "Gone With The Wind", "Avatar", "This Is It:Tribute to Michael Jackson", anything produced by Oscar Micheaux; any of the old Black classic movies; most old black & white movies; all classic cartoons and animations.
FAVORITE MUSIC:
Anything by MANDRILL, Israel Houghton & New Breed; Jazz, R&B, Soul, Caribbean, African, West Indian & East Indian Music, Classical Music; African music of all types, Steel Bands, Kora, and most celestial music.
FAVORITE BOOKS:
Sayonara by James Michner, From Slavery To Freedom, Science Of The Mind By Earnest Holmes, Riches Within Your Reach by Robert Collier; Anything by Reverend Fredereck K. Eikerenkotter, affectionately known as REVEREND IKE; Resurrection, and any other books by Neville Goddard.
MY DOSIER:
Writer, speaker, educator, I have written for and about most contemporary Black political figures, celebrities, artists, unsung s/heroes for over 30 years. I a known for my one-on-one personality profiles; incisive writing style, and no nonsense manner of relating the untold truths about Black people, our culture and our history. If you are looking for someone to tell your story, contact me at gloriadulanwilson@gmail.com. If you are looking for some to host an event, or address students about Black History contact me at gloriadulanwilson@gmail.com
My formal education consists of a B.A. in Sociology from Lincoln University; MS Guidance and Counseling from Hunter College, CUNY; Certification in RE Appraisal from New York Real Estate Institute (2011); FCC License in Broadcast Journalism;
MY PASSIONS
Eclectically Black People -African/American/Caribbean/South Americans, Affordable Decent Housing, Real Estate, Co-Homeownership, Celebrities Who Make a Difference, President OBama & 1st Lady Michelle, Elected Officials Who Make a Difference, Political Issues, Education, Children of All Ages (1-100years old) Empowering Africa, Things/People Japanese, Profiles on Black Business Executives, Grassroot Community Leaders & Unsung S/Heroes, Movie Scripts, Poetry And Children Stories, History - everybody's & Culture; gourmet cooking, Sewing, Designing keep me centered; Above all else Health and Happiness and Living Happily Ever After.
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
8.09.2011
Event Alert: Thursday, August 11, MANDRILL at B.B.KINGS: THE BEST JAM YOU EVER SPREAD YOUR BREAD ON
Well it's kind of like the feeling of the Prodigal Sons returning home! Mandrill, in New York, at BB Kings, after such a long time of being away! You almost want to go get the royal ring to welcome them back to the fold. For if any place is home for this elite (yes, I said elite) group of musicians, vocalists, performers, philosophers, brothers, it's New York City!!
Sure they were born the Wilson's on the Panama Canal, where they (four of them - all boys, mind you: Luis, Ricardo, Carlos and Wilfredo) were raised by their parents, Doris and Wilfred Wilson, who instilled in them a lifetime love and reverence for music. Indeed, their Jamaican born father had each one of them playing some kind of instrument by the tender ages of four and five, and made it a responsibility, right up there with the other chores they had to do. In fact, if they didn't practice, they couldn't go out and play.
And now, music is in their blood - it's their air, they literally breathe the stuff - they write their own original music, lyrics, concepts, drawing heavily on all they heard, saw and learned in their formative years, from a multi-cultural community, where people from all over the world came to live and work - the Panama Canal. People from Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, St. Croix, St. Lucia - you name it, there in their little enclaves, speaking in different dialects, with different cultural flavors - the Wilson Brothers soaked it up (though they didn't know they were doing so at the time).
But the world probably would never have heard of these talented brothers had their parents not decided to emigrate to America to give them better lives. So in the early fifties they sailed with the two eldest sons, Lou and Ric, for New York, and landed in the wonderful land of BROOKLYN. Talk about an adjustment. Their accents against that of Brooklynese - by the time they had graduated from the famed Boys High School (yes they are part of the Legends of the High!), they had mastered that and so much more.
As their parents progressed, they soon sent for the other two sons (Carlos and Wilfredo), and established a household near the Marcy Projects on Hart Street, where the accents there, just as in Panama, were from all over the world - because Brooklyn, indeed was and is the mecca for Caribbean and Central Americans who likewise came to give their families better lives.
Their mother, who originated from Barbados, and was the entrepreneurial spirit of the family, had her own beauty parlor, and provided services (as well as any and all community news) to the ladies of the neighborhood. The boys, now teens, rehearsed in their mother's shop, and, combining the flavor of Panama, Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Africa, with the flavor in the streets of Brooklyn, their unique musical style was forged.
Young men now, they morphed into Lou, Ric, Carl, and Wolf Wilson - each an incarnation of all that their parents instilled, coupled with an overarching love for their unique blend of cultural influences. While they initially pursued other careers, Ric, a Doctor; Carl served a stint in VietNam; Lou followed the trail of psychology; Wolf attended college - they decided that the only thing they really loved was their music - and the rest, as we say, is history.
There are many former neighbors and friends who remember those early days, when it looked as if Mandrill would just be a good local band - playing in such local clubs as the Blue Coronet, among other places. But they were destined for greater things - and soon garnered national attention, leading them to major contracts with Polydor Records, Arista Records, several gold records, and world wide tours.
Many of their fans are still shaking their heads in wonder at how so much sound could come out of four men - who collectively play among them 45 instrument, as well as doing their own vocals, from four part harmony to a`capella.
So it's only natural that their arrival is creating a bit of a buzz - to put it mildly (and you know, I never do anything mildly; more like wildly) that they are beginning their East Coast Tour at BB Kings, in New York, during Harlem Week - WOW!! Talk about making an entrance!!
Mandrill, the group has grown exponentially since the early days, and are a veritable explosion of music on the stage. I mean real music - because these are each consummate musicians in their own right. You might say they are musicologist because they have it down to a science. If you sit in a rehearsal with them, you might hear such comments as "That's an E to the flatted fifth...." While to you and I whatever they play sounds wonderful, they are listening with the ears of trained musicians that would put most symphony orchestras to shame - these men can play!! (In fact, Mandrill was the first rock group to play Carnegie Hall in the early 70's - packed the house and turned it out!!)
This equally talented entourage that has joined the group is part of what could be called Mandrill's musical dream team - taking what is already great to extraordinary.
For the nostalgic, of course the music that made Mandrill famous "Fence Walk," "Mango Meat," "Hang Loose," "Land of the Golden Baboon," "House of Wood," "Git It All (Shake Some Boody)," "Polk Street Carnival," will be part of the repertoire, but something new has been added in the form of Spoken Word artist, the One Sun Lion Ra (Rais Wilson, son of Lou, whose been making a name in his own right), who frequently joins the group on tour.
It's this mix of the old (old?) with the new that keeps Mandrill a favorite for those of us in the 70's who knew them when, right through to today's new followers. From snippets of their music heard on countless albums from those who have bitten off their unique sound to augment their own, this group is alive with their flavor of Afro/Latin/Caribbean/Soul/R&B/Classic beats.
As they did in Morocco, Venezuela, Europe, and the rest of the world, the music of Mandrill will blow your mind. I defy anyone to remain in their seats during the last 40 minutes of the concert - unless of course you are made of wood, and I've even seen wood vibrate in resonance to the syncopation of their unrelenting, unmitigated musical onslaught.
Mandrill is awesome and the world knows it. That's why they've remained the standard bearers of true unvarnished musical pleasure over the years. Fans from Philly, DC, Atlanta, California, Detroit, Texas, among others come to concerts with their original Mandrill Albums, holding them lovingly in their hands, treasures from the 70's and 80's.
Fans in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe know every lyric of every song they ever sang and sing along with them in the audience. They turned them out in Montreaux, and are still talking about it. Others bring their tambourines, cow bells and other instruments, or just drum on the table while the group is on stage jamming. They can't help it!
You can check it out for yourself by logging on to www.mandrill.com or you can make it your business to be among the crowd at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill 237 West 42 St.; (212) 997-4144 - on Thursday, August 11, when Mandrill takes New York by storm.
Mandrill is dripping with soul out of every pore, and remain to this day the Best Jam you ever spread your bread on!!!
See you at BB Kings - I'll be the one dancing down front!
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)