Mixed Race Studies

A Tale of Two Seminole Counties

Indian Voices
August 2013
page 7

Phil Fixico

Some coincidences can’t be ignored, like February the 26th, in both Florida’s and Oklahoma’s Seminole Counties. What does this date and these counties have in common. Trayvon Martin was killed on February 26th, 2012, in Seminole County, Florida. He was born on Feb. 5th, 1995, not in Seminole County, but that, is where his young life would tragically be ended.

My grandfather Pompey Bruner Fixico, on Feb. 14th, 1894, a hundred and one years before Trayvon’s birth, was born in Seminole County, Oklahoma. Eighty-seven years before Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of an armed killer, who felt entitled to take Trayvon’s life, a similar scenario would end Pompey Bruner Fixico’s life on Feb. 26th, 1925, by someone else, who also didn’t hesitate. Pompey was a good deal older than Trayvon, he was 31 yrs. old and a WW1 Vet who had served his country in France during the War. He left a wife and four children, all younger than Trayvon’s 17 years, who by many, would be considered a child in a young man’s body. Pompey’s death took place, not far from the site of the “worst racial violence in American History”, “The Tulsa Race Riot”. The Riot had occurred 4 years earlier in 1921. Pompey Bruner’s (his father was Caesar Bruner) Draft Registration Card lists, his place of employment, in 1917, as the Brady Hotel, in Tulsa, Ok. It was owned by Mr. Tate Brady, the Grand Wizard of Oklahoma’s Ku Klux Klan, in that area. Grand Wizard Brady was reported to have had a hand in the, “Tulsa Race Riot”…

Read the entire article here.

Native American Roots in Black America Run Deep

Indian Voices
2013-02-04

David A. Love

Do you have Indian in your family? That’s a common question asked in the black community. Many African- Americans lay claim to Native American ancestry, and yet very few blacks have taken the steps to research this part of the history, to learn about their Native American roots and embrace the culture.

Thanksgiving is known as a time for American families to reunite, partake in feast and be grateful. And yet for Native Americans it is a time for mourning, a reflection on the arrival of European settlers that ultimately led to their displacement and elimination by the millions.

Blacks in America are intertwined with that history, and yet the evidence they possess is mostly anecdotal, such as the grandmother who had long, straight black hair, high cheekbones or a red tint to her skin…

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Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa Honors A West Coast Black Seminole Leader

Indian Voices
January 2012
pages 7 & 11

Dr. Bruce Twyman

On October 28th, 2011 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa honored the Native American community of Southern California by hosting the cities’ annual American Indian Heritage Month celebration at city hall. A noteworthy and historical addition to this year’s celebration was for the first time a Black Indian was invited. A representative of the Black Seminole, Phil Pompey Fixico attended the event. Webster’s Dictionary defines heritage as something transmitted by or acquired from a  predecessor. From the start of the European conquest and colonization of the Americas, there has been a symbiotic nexus between Black and Indian people. This nexus is variously reflected in culture, ancestry and law. Millions of Black Americans acknowledge this heritage. As a proud and active member of these millions, Fixico’s selection is apropos.

Black Americans awareness of their own personal Indian heritage ranges from precise knowledge to legendary rumors. Fixico’s knowledge is precise and has been documented in the Smithsonian Institution publication, Invisible-African Native American Lives in the Americas, and in The Journal of the American Society for Ethno-History. As a Black Seminole, Fixico is a member of a people with a 200 year documented successful resistance to slavery in North America.

Scholars and tribal members disagree to some extent about the precise origin of the Seminole people. Nonetheless the word Seminole has a genesis as a British corruption of the Spanish term Cimaron. Columbus referred to domesticated cattle which escaped from ranches as Cimarons; but, the term became fixed upon slaves who successfully resisted enslavement…

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Indian Voices Creates a Bureau of Black Indian Affairs

Indian Voices
July/August 2011

Rose Davis, Publisher
Indian Voices

At last a true Separate But Equal—For the Good of the People

The Dawes Rolls (a census, used by the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] to determine identity of Tribal members and citizens) came into existence in the 1890’s. It was a time of “Separate but Equal” and this “flawed U.S. policy” became the basis for the Full-Blood/By-Blood vs. Freedman (no Indian Blood counted) rating system for Tribal Membership. US Dawes Rolls Enumerators using Separate but Equal techniques left the Freedman with an identity crisis which continues to this day.

The policy of using Separate but Equal data gathering techniques negated the U.S governments requirement in the 1866 treaties that Blacks be treated as equal citizens.

No one other than Phil Fixico has aggressively championed the cause of addressing and reversing this issue. As a Seminole Maroon descendant he has written, lectured, networked and labored exhaustively to bring this issue into the social consciousness. The resulting Bureau of Black Indian Affairs is his “brain child.” He has generously offered the project to the collective consciousness of the Indigenous community and has stated that he will take no part in it’s operation or management. As a networking partner Indian Voices humbly takes on the task of launching the first Bureau of Black Indian Affairs in this July/August 2011 issue…

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Does Gates DNA Data Make Black Indians an Urban Legend? Or Does Eating Out of the Same Pot Still Matter?

Indian Voices
July/August 2011
page 7

Phil Wilkes Fixico

I am Phil Wilkes Fixico a Seminole Maroon Descendant who was featured in the Smithsonian Institution’s book and exhibit entitled “IndiVisible” African-Native American Lives. My personal and family’s genealogy was researched by Kevin Mulroy, Ph.D. of UCLA. Dr. Mulroy is recognized as the worlds’s leading authority on Seminole Maroons. I am pleased that Bruce Twyman, Ph.D. and author of “The Black Seminole Legacy and North American Politics’ has done a survey targeting the general public’s views about African- Native Americans and Dr. Henry Louis Gates DNA studies.

The problem that I have with Dr. Gates’ attempts to end the myth that there is a goodly some of African-Americans with Native American ancestry is that he bases his findings totally on DNA results. He then “quotes a quote” by advising African Americans to Seek the White Man as their correct blood ancestor…

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Honoring Our Legacy: Past, Present and Future, RED/BLACK Connections

Indian Voices
October 2010
pages 8-9

Black Native American Association’s First Multi-Cultural National Pow Wow
California State University Eastbay-Hayward
September 18-19, 2010

On Friday, September 17, a workshop examined the Red/Black relationships and how to improve them. Noted participants on the panel included Black Seminole Lonnie Harrington, author of “Both Sides of the Water”, a teaching artist at the Arts Connections in New York and a Native American drummer. Others were Dr. Andrew Jolivette, Associate Professor and department chief of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University and author of two books: ”Louisiana Creoles” and “Cultural Recovery and Mixed Race Native American Identity;” Dr. Elnora Webb-Mitchell, President of Laney College; Pastor Steve Constantine, Arwak Tribe, Guyna, South America; and Jewelle Gomez, poet, author, political activist, playwright, Native American (Wampanoag and Iowasy) and Director of Cultural Equity Grants Program of San Francisco…

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