Creighton’s chapter of the NAACP started their events for black history month with a presentation about the history and identity of Black Indians Monday night.
The audience was small, but all listened to Dr. Jessiline Anderson, professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Anderson took the chance to try to actively engage the listeners and share with them some of her personal stories about being a Black Indian. She is part of the Omaha tribe.
Anderson talked about the reasons why there are so many Black Indians and the reasons their history is one of mystery and little detail, even with people such as Rosa Parks and Jesse Jackson in their cultural background.
She explained that most Black Indians identify with either one race or the other and that some generations were taught to be ashamed of who they were, leaving future generations to scramble to identify themselves.
Anderson began by asking the simple question, “Who are you?” to the audience members, and more specifically, “Who are you as an individual? What makes you who you are?” The answers ranged from Irish and German to Omaha Indian.
“Do you have a card to tell you that?” Anderson asked an audience member after he shared his background. When he said no, she asked, “No, hmmm, I wonder, why is that?”
Native Americans have to carry a CDIB card to identify how much Indian blood they have in them and to which tribe they belong.
“What is wrong with this picture?” Anderson asked. “Or is there anything wrong?”
In response, Audrey Edmonds, vice president of the NAACP and also a Black Indian, asked, “Well why should we have to prove what we are?”
The reason, Anderson said, is because of the DAWES Act that the government passed in 1887.
“It was one of the most tragic mistakes the U.S. government ever made,” Anderson said.
It split apart the Native American population, causing corruption and strife among the tribes, Anderson said. It also brought into question whether Black Indians should be included in the division.
That is a question that is still being debated in some of the tribes today.
The history of Black Indians goes back to when both the African American population and the Native American populations were persecuted, Anderson said. The European Americans knew the best way to make sure they did not unite against them was to set them against each other.
Despite all this, the two populations shared the fact that they were at the bottom of the totem poll, Anderson said. Many African American men married Native American woman, mainly because they were free women, according to the video clip at the beginning of the presentation.
Anderson also said it would have been a better option for a lot of Native American women instead of trying to marry men from the same reservation.
“On reservations, it falls on the women a lot of times to be the backbone of the community,” she said. “Strong men were simply not there.”
The ties between the African American and the Native American communities run deep, Anderson said.
“I may be going off the deep end here when I say this,” Anderson said, “but I would say that every African American has a tie to the Native population in some way.”