Jerry Eaglefeather

I'm one of the main people responsible in America for the "Acknowledgement of Black Indians" And in '79 I began a trek to wake America up about Black Indians. I had the first web site and have been awarded in many states by congressmen for being the pioneer of our heritage. There were no book out and no articles before I began to wake America up about our heritage. I will post some of these awards. And my family is the ones who got Native Americans recognized in the state of NYC [Chief BlackHawk San Carlos} my father and (Distar Tay) Mohawk My Grandmother posted in my photos. Not New York I said NYC for the Day of the Native American. I have a web site BlackIndians.com and it has been around since then. The first Black Indian Association and the first Tribal group in American a we are called Binay. It stands for Black Indians And Intertribal Native Americans Association. BIINAA. Pronounced Binay. William Loren Katz jumped on the band wagon and contacted me and then published the book Black Indians. And others followed. This was not a time of acceptance and I received thousands of hate mail from everyone. But I was a living proof and I would not deny myself. And while there were others many where afraid to speak out. And most of our Pow wows and gatherings were private affairs and closed to the public.

In those days many Natives hated black Indian people they felt threatened and felt like there was no such thing. And they didn't have much as it was. Yet the many so called white natives flocked to the reservations with their money after Dances with wolves came out and they paid there way to tribal rolls. Many of them had learned from the white man how to hate and this was a very sad time. But I continued at the Pow wows and continued to share our heritage and our culture had to be refined and we needed a place. In those days I was ostracized. And I continued to persevered through it because I was told to do this by our Creator. And I continued to preach love and unity and acceptance and I do so now. We are one. To accept one another and tell everyone that we did not chose who we are. Creator did. And we are like Creator each and every one of us. You did not chose you. And since this is so, then we are all a special part of Creator so that if we hate anyone of us then there is part of our Creator that we hate. We must not hate Red, Black, Yellow or White for those are our Sacred colors and in the sacred hoop our vertical line connects us to Creator and our Horizontal line connects us to each other and we are all in the Circle which is Mother earth for this gives us balance. Hatred has no place. We are who we are by the grace of God.

Kai-YenTuwa Rose

 I use to date her, Her name is Kai-YenTuwa Rose. She is Black Shinnicock-Cherokee. She is an excellent Fancy Shawl dancer. And we have done many shows and events together. Including the big production "The Giving Of Thanks to the Native Americans" In NYC. - Jerry Eaglefeather