Black American Indians reach for untold story

Afro-Aboriginals reclaiming rich multi-ethnic roots

WAUKEGAN -- A group of black Americans interested in exploring their American Indian roots has formed a group called the Northern Illinois Afro-Aboriginals.

"The African Native American is a story that's not told," said Ali Albakri, a founding member and managing editor of Lake County Arts magazine, who heard from a cousin that his family tree includes members of the Blackfoot tribe.

The idea for the group came from Joe Russell, 54, of Waukegan, a substitute teacher. Russell's birth mother, Tienna Evans, was a full-blooded Arapaho, he said, and his birth father was black. Russell, who was adopted, has struggled to learn the facts of his heritage, and he has struggled for acceptance as a bi-racial, multi-ethnic person in a culture that is just beginning to embrace multiculturalism.

"Being racially mixed means, to some groups, that I'm diluting blood lines," he said. "But I'm equal parts both.

The Afro-Aboriginals sponsored a booth during a downtown Waukegan Juneteenth celebration last summer, and members have attended the annual end-of summer powwow in Zion organized by a committee of Potawatomi.

In celebration of his Arapaho heritage, Russell has taken the tribal name Angshe B'neshe Tienna, or Lone Hawk Touched by the Sun. Elders from the Northern Arapaho band recently presented him a warrior's bonnet, and he has been declared a Winkta, a "two-spirited" tribal "mediatrix between the voice of the people and the ear of the divine."

Russell points to the close connection between American Indians and Africans, the latter who were depicted in Incan and Mayan ruins. Indians and Africans have a history of cultural exchange and intermarriage, especially in the southern United States. According to some historical accounts, Africans already lived in Jamestown when the Dutch imported slaves to the settlement in 1619 -- a year before the arrival of the Pilgrims.

"Blacks intermarried with Indians 3,000 years ago -- we've been around that long," said Russell, who has explored the connections between the two ethnic groups and has created posters and other visual aids that he uses to teach on the subject.

Katherine Swopes of Waukegan has traced her ancestry no farther than Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. But she heard growing up that "we had Indian blood."

"That piqued my interest to ask 'Where am I from?" Swopes said. "To say someone's black doesn't encompass who they are. Black is just a color of skin."

"It's important to know where you come from," Swopes said. "If you don't the know the truth, you're going to be lost.

Albakri draws on another reason to rediscover the black-Indian connection.

"Native peoples honor the earth," said Albakri, an MBA student at Robert Morris University. "Their culture is going to be important in developing a new green ideology. When industry becomes more aware and more in tune with native culture, it will be more in tune with preservation of the planet."