{"id":45320,"date":"2016-01-23T23:06:37","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T23:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45320"},"modified":"2016-01-23T23:06:37","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T23:06:37","slug":"black-indians-formed-the-first-american-rainbow-coalition%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45320","title":{"rendered":"Black Indians Formed the First American Rainbow Coalition\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Indians Formed the First American Rainbow Coalition<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n1991-03-17<\/p>\n

To the Editor:<\/p>\n

“Census Finds Many Claiming New Identity: Indian<\/a>” (front-page, March 5) discusses whites who now assert their Indian blood, but fails to mention African-Americans who can claim longer and more legitimate ties to America’s Indian heritage. Many in the New York area<\/a> are pursuing their biracial heritage through such organizations as the National Alliance of Native Americans<\/a> and radio stations such as WLIB<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The African-native American connection came to light in 1503, when Gov. Nicolas de Ovando of Hispaniola<\/a> complained to King Ferdinand<\/a> that African slaves “fled among the Indians . . . and never could be captured.” His words announced our first rainbow coalition. Today almost every African-American family — from Frederick Douglass<\/a>, Langston Hughes<\/a> and Alex Haley<\/a> to Alice Walker<\/a>, Jesse Jackson<\/a> and L. L. Cool J<\/a> — has an Indian branch in its family tree. The statistics are much lower for white Americans…<\/p>\n

…William L. Katz<\/a>
\nNew York
\nMarch 6, 1991<\/p>\n

The writer, a scholar in residence at N.Y.U., is the author of “Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage<\/a>” (1986).<\/em><\/p>\n

Read the entire letter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black Indians Formed the First American Rainbow Coalition The New York Times 1991-03-17 To the Editor: “Census Finds Many Claiming New Identity: Indian” (front-page, March 5) discusses whites who now assert their Indian blood, but fails to mention African-Americans who can claim longer and more legitimate ties to America’s Indian heritage. Many in the New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,12566,8,3015,20],"tags":[2640,2327,9573,9572],"class_list":["post-45320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-letters","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-usa","tag-new-york-times","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-william-katz","tag-william-l-katz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45321,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45320\/revisions\/45321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}