Our struggle to reclaim our lost identity is a daily task. In our journey to take back our stolen heritage we are confronted with bigotry and hate from all sides. Our oppressors define us as negro, black and colored despite all the evidence to the contrary. The traditional Native American continuously sides with the narrative provided by our common enemy. An enemy that openly oppresses and disregards both of our HUMAN RIGHTS. And lastly we face ridicule in our own communities for simply wanting to honor our own ancestors. We are called Culture Vultures and are accused of being ashamed of our African ancestry. In this article titled, Michael Jackson & Rosa Parks: 10 Black People With Native Ancestry it seems as though mainstream has no problem claiming so called “Black” who have achieved the American dream of celebrity status.
Stay tuned, Turtle Snaps Back ep.2 will address this issue
AP Photo/Doug Pizac
In this February 29, 1984 file photo, pop superstar Michael Jackson, right, is joined by his sisters, from left, Maureen “Rebie”, Janet and LaToya on stage during the 26th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, as he receives an award for Best Male Pop Vocal. Jackson received a total of eight Grammy awards, a new record. Jackson, 50, died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Thursday, June 25, 2009.
Michael Jackson & Rosa Parks: 10 Black People With Native Ancestry
Though not all of the specific tribes are known, the Native heritage of these historic notables has been documented, researched or claimed by them in their lifetime in some way or another.
In appreciation of these notables who have contributed to society in some way or another, here are a list African Americans you may not have known have some Native ancestry.
Jimi Hendrix
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame calls him the greatest instrumentalist of all time, Jimi Hendrix was born Johnny Allen Hendrix on November 27, 1942. Hendrix was of African, European, Cherokee Indian and Mexican descent and spent many of his early years with his grandmother, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. After a short career, Hendrix died in 1970 from barbiturate related asphyxia at the age of 27.
Press Association via AP Images
File photo dated August 20, 1970 of Jimi Hendrix on stage.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (and his wife Coretta Scott King)
In William Loren Katz’s book Black Indians, he cites that Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 had mobilized a Poor People’s March and had invited whites, African Americans, Native Americans and all other races. In his book Katz writes, “King whose own ancestors included Native Americans as well as Africans, was assassinated in Memphis before the March reached Washington.” It was also known that Coretta was of African American and Creek ancestry.
AP Photo/Joe Holloway Jr.
Coretta Scott King poses before a photo painting of her late husband, Martin Luther King Jr., January 1972. The painting hangs behind her office desk and is one of her favorites.
Lena Horne
Known as an influential African American actress, dancer, singer and civil rights activist, Lena Horne was also Native American from both of her parents, Edwin Frank Horne Jr. and Edna Louise Scottron. Horne joined the famous Cotton Club chorus at age 16 and performed in the movie and performing industry for decades, born in 1917, Lena Horne passed away in 2010 at age 92.
AP Photo
Miss Lena Horne, a 30-year-old singer, is seen rehearsing in London, England, October 30, 1947 for a performance at the London Casino.
Michael Jackson (and all the Jacksons)
In an interview with Joe Jackson in the book The Jacksons he tells the readers that he has Choctaw in his family history. There are also unconfirmed accounts that Michael Jackson’s mother, Katherine Jackson, has Blackfoot ancestry.
James Earl Jones
Yes Luke, you might have had a Native American father—at least as far as the voice of Darth Vader is concerned. According to James Earl Jones in an interview with the BBC, he said his grandmother had Cherokee, Choctaw and African American roots.
Rex Features via AP Images
Photo by Steve Meddle/Rex Features 1470594bf) James Earl Jones ‘The Alan Titchmarsh Show’ TV Programme, London, Britain. – 14 Oct 2011
Beyoncé
Well, some of you might know that Beyonce’ is part Native American after she did that L’Oréal commercial. According to Ms. Knowles the Native American comes from her mother’s Creole heritage, which includes Native American.
RELATED: Beyonce’ Touts L’Oreal Cosmetics That ‘Match’ Your Native American Shade
Photo by Frank Micelotta/Invision for Parkwood Entertainment/AP Images
Singer Beyonce performs on her “Mrs. Carter Show World Tour 2013”, on Saturday June 29, 2013, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks rocked the civil rights world when she refused to give up her seat to a white male passenger on a segregated bus. Called the “First Lady of Civil Rights” by the U.S. Congress, Rosa Parks was also of Cherokee and Creek descent.
National Archives and Records Administration Records of the U.S. Information Agency Record Group 306/Wikimedia Commons
Photograph of Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ca. 1955)
Oprah Winfrey
Though not necessarily conventional—or maybe too conventional, Oprah Winfrey went the DNA testing route on a documentary called African American Lives in 2006 and discovered she was part Native American along with Chris Tucker. During the program, Oprah said that to many African-Americans in her generation, being “a little Indian” was desirable.
Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Oprah Winfrey speaks on stage at the 45th NAACP Image Awards at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Saturday, February 22, 2014, in Pasadena, California.
James Brown
The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, with such blazing hits as “Sex Machine” and “I Feel Good” is Apache as well as African American. In a 2004 interview, Brown credited his Apache roots to living a healthier lifestyle without cigarettes and alcohol. He said, “I guess the Indian temper is there. That’s why I don’t drink liquor… I smoke very little. If I smoke, I smoke what the Indians smoke. Whatever that is, ha ha ha!”
AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko
James Brown performs during a concert in Shanghai, China, in this February 22, 2006, file photo. The dynamic “Godfather of Soul,” whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died December 25, 2006 of heart failure brought on by pneumonia. He was 73.
LL Cool J.
Just as William Loren Katz proclaims on his website regarding Africans and Indians, “Though often unmentioned except in family circles, this biological legacy has been shared by such figures as Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes, Lena Horne, Alice Walker, Jesse Jackson, Michael Jackson and LL Cool J.”
In Katz’ book, LL Cool J. is holding a copy of Black Indians and claims Cherokee descent… enough said.
Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
LL Cool J arrives at the 56th annual GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on Sunday, January 26, 2014, in Los Angeles.
Follow Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk) – ICMN’s Arts and Entertainment, Pow Wows and Sports Editor –
Notable people of African-Native American mixture
Aaliyah in the year 2000.
Angel Goodrich, she was the highest-drafted Native player in WNBA history in 2013
Radmilla Cody singing “The Star-Spangled Banner in Navajo at the Kennedy Space Center, 2010
Billy Bowlegs, Black Seminole historian and traditionalist
- Nahshon Dion Anderson (b. 1978), award winning writer, actor and model of African American, Mexican, and Native American ancestry[1]
- William Apess‘s mother was part Pequot[2]
- Henry Armstrong‘s mother was Iroquois[3]
- Monica is part Native American[4]
- Crispus Attucks (Wampanoag and Natick) was the first casualty of the Boston Massacre[5]
- K. D. Aubert is part Native American[6]
- Andre “Andre 3000” Benjamin is part Native American.[7]
- Traci Bingham‘s father is Native American[8]
- Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges is part Native American[9]
- Bizzy Bone (Bryon McCane) has some Native American descent[10]
- George Bonga (1802–1880), fur trader and interpreter in what is now Minnesota, son of trader and interpreter Pierre Bonga and an Ojibwe mother[11]
- Billy Bowlegs III (1862–1965), Florida Seminole elder and historian[12]
- James Brown was part Apache[13][14]
- Jesse L. Brown, naval officer, first African-American to become a naval aviator[citation needed]
- Olivia Ward Bush (1869–1944), African American–Montaukett author, poet, and journalist[15]
- Radmilla Cody, enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, former Miss Navajo, and anti-domestic violence activist[16]
- Bessie Coleman, the first Native and African-American woman to get a pilot’s license, was part Cherokee[17][18]
- Joseph Louis Cook, a colonel in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War[19]
- George Crum (Huron), chef credited with inventing potato chips[20]
- Paul Cuffee (Wampanoag and Ashanti), Quaker businessman, sea captain, patriot, and abolitionist[21]
- YaYa DaCosta is part Native American[22]
- Stacey Dash is of West Indian and Aztec descent[23]
- Milt Davis is part Native American[24]
- Rosario Dawson is part Native American through her father[25]
- Ramona Douglass is part Oglala Lakota[26]
- Gary Dourdan is part Native American[27]
- Maria Ewing, opera singer, partly African-American and Sioux.[28][29][30][31]
- Mabel Fairbanks (Seminole), figure skater and coach[32]
- Redd Foxx was part Seminole[33]
- Vivica A. Fox is part Native American[34]
- Meagan Good is part Cherokee and Taino[35]
- Angel Goodrich, enrolled member of the Cherokee nation and a WNBA athlete[36]
- Illinois Jacquet‘s mother was Sioux and his father Creole[37]
- Alex Haley (1921-1992) had Cherokee ancestors[38][39]
- Rebecca Hall is Sioux through her mother Maria Ewing[40][41][42]
- Ben Harper is part Cherokee[43]
- Aaliyah Haughton was part Native American[44][45]
- Dorris Henderson is part Blackfoot[46]
- Jimi Hendrix was part Cherokee[47]
- Leon Hendrix is part Cherokee[47]
- Lena Horne was part Native American[48]
- John Horse (Juan Caballo) (ca. 1812–1882), Black Seminole war leader in Florida, also leader of Black Seminoles in Mexico[49]
- Langston Hughes was part Native American[50]
- Michael Jackson had Choctaw ancestry on his father’s side and Blackfoot ancestry on his mother’s[51]
- Shar Jackson is part Cherokee and Taino/Arawak[52]
- James Earl Jones is part Cherokee and Choctaw[53][54]
- Julia Jones is of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribe[55]
- Lolo Jones is part Native American[56]
- Susannah Mushatt Jones was for a time the world’s oldest living person and according to her family had some Native American ancestry.[57]
- Alexis Jordan is part Native American[58]
- Eartha Kitt was part Cherokee[59]
- Beyoncé Knowles is part Native American[60]
- Solange Knowles is part Native American[60]
- Sanaa Lathan is part Native American[61]
- Bianca Lawson is part Native American[62]
- Ananda Lewis is part Creek and Blackfoot[63]
- Edmonia Lewis was of Mississauga Ojibwe–Haitian ancestry[64]
- Mance Lipscomb is part Choctaw[65]
- Amber Littlejohn is part Cherokee[citation needed]
- Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance (Lumbee), journalist and writer, adopted into the Kainai Nation[66]
- Laura Love is part Native American[67]
- Richard Mayhew is part Native American and a landscape painter[68]
- Angela McGlowan is part Native American[69]
- James Meredith (Choctaw), desegregation pioneer[70]
- Leona Mitchell (Chickasaw), operatic soprano[71]
- Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi is part Native American [72]
- Nicole Ari Parker is part Cherokee[73]
- Rosa Parks was descended from a Native American slave on record[74]
- Ann Plato (ca. 1824–unknown), tribe unknown, one of the first African American published women authors[75]
- Charlie Patton (1887–1934), Black Cherokee and founding father of the blues in the Mississippi Delta[76]
- Oscar Pettiford‘s mother was Choctaw and his father part Cherokee[77][78]
- Phylicia Rashād‘s father was full-blooded Cherokee[79]
- Martha Redbone, Native American Music Award-winning soul music artist of Shawnee–Choctaw–Cherokee ancestry[80]
- Della Reese was of self-identified Cherokee descent[54]
- Marguerite Scypion (ca. 1770s–after 1836), an African–Natchez woman whose family successfully sued for their freedom in Missouri[81]
- Will Smith is part Native American[citation needed]
- Willie “The Lion” Smith (Mohawk), jazz pianist[82]
- Woody Strode (Blackfoot, Cherokee, and Muscogee), decathlete, football player, and actor[83]
- Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas is part Native American[84]
- Chris Tucker is part Native American[85]
- Tina Turner identifies herself as Cherokee and Navajo[54]
- Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins is part Native American[86]
- Kerry Washington is part Native American[87]
- France Winddance Twine (b. 1960), sociologist enrolled in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation[88]
- Amil “Amil” Whitehead is part Cherokee[89]
- Mykelti Williamson is part Blackfoot[54]
- Oprah Winfrey is part Native American[85]
- Keke Wyatt is part Cherokee[90]
- Melisa “Kid Sister” Young is part Native American[91]
- Michael Zinzun (1949–2006), former Black Panther and anti-police brutality activist of African and Apache descent[92]
