Let's meet our first guest!

Bernard Humbles-Penn is the principal chief of the United Cherokee Indian Tribe of Kentuck and West Virginia, incorporated.

If you think it's interesting that these tribes have to be incorporated.

Wait till you hear what else he has to say.

He joins us tonight to discuss the links between African-American and Native American heritage, and what he refers to as the US government's policy of documentary genocide.

Mr.

Humbles-Penn Welcome to our program!

First of all, let's star with that documentary, Genocide.

Exactly, what do you mean, sir?

The removal of the term Native American or Indian at the inception of the United States.

When the 13 colonies become federated, they, at the first census, all Indians were put down as mulatto.

That's in the 1790 census.

So on paper, they are killing off Indian tribes by describing them as half white and half black.

No, they are describing their changing the term of Indian.

They changed the whole thing and make them all black.

This is the beginning of a gradual degeneration to becoming black in the East, not in the West.

I'm talking about in the east, the first census.

Now you talk about degeneration.

Was was it in the eyes of the whites at that time that it was better to classify all peoples of color black so that they might enslave them?

For what purpose would they do this, so that they wouldn't have to pay the Indian for the lands they took?

They would not have to honor the treaties.

So once the people were removed on paper, there's nobody to pay.

So if you have tribes like the Oneida who were in New York and they had a treaty and they were going to pay them a certain amount for this land.

But everybody looks at the census document and they're describe as mulatto, not Native American.

Then who's to pay?

Is tha is that the point you're making?

That was the point!

But the six nations or five nations at the time, they did receive reservations.

A large percentage of the six nations are on state property.

They don't own their own reservation here in the East.

How do you describe yourself, sir?

I describe myself as an American-Indian or a person of American-Indian descent.

How can you prove this?

I mean, to look at you.

People would assume, and probably incorrectly, according to your description, that you're a black man, that you're of African descent by all visual concepts, Yes, I appear to be black, but we don't know what black is because in the beginning, the business of race and what Columbus found here was removed.

When Columbus arrived here, he thought he was in India.

And the people of India are very dark, so that was wiped out.

Also, a portion of history was wiped out.

They did not put down at any given time that Phoenicians and Nubians were here on this continent.

But in Canada they have some of the artifacts that were left by those people.

Doctor Ivan Van Sertima, in his book says, documented the fact that there were many Nubians here before Columbus came, as a matter of fact, and he had scholarly evidence of that.

You have incorporated at the end of your tribe.

Why is that, sir?

Because it's necessary to comply with the wishes of the government that you become a group or a tribe to be recognized sooner or later.

And part of the thing about being recognized as a group is becoming incorporated to match the appearance of being, to conform with the system.

You say to conform with the system or match the appearance which makes it forming with us, but it makes it sound like you're playing a game.

You're even laughing about it, so that you might collect on one of these Cherokee treaties that you're a black man who's exploiting maybe Native American background to collect on this.

Do you have proof of your Native American background?

Yes, and it was done by the Baltimore Genealogical Society, also by Doctor Peter Houck and also Doctor Horace Rice.

So you have documents and this is not something you just made up.

Right!

Okay!

Are you trying to claim anything under Cherokee status, your affiliation with that tribe?

No!

What is your purpose?

To educate.

Merely to have my grandchildren receive an education.

And they are receiving an education.

I had one in college at Fort Lewis, Colorado.

She received a grant to go to school there under Native American program because she is a descendant of Native Americans, right.

As you have documented, you are.

So she is then right?

Right!

Okay, so what are you saying?

There are benefits out there if we identify as Native American?

I mean, my grandmother, almost every black person I meet says, grandma told them we have some Native American in our background.

Is that enough or oral history?

Yes, in a sense, because you also have to back you up with the business of being classified as black.

Don't forget, as documentary genocide took place from a ladder in 1790 to 1800, becoming free colored people to 1830, becoming, with the invocation or the invoking of the Racial Integrity Law of 1831.

One drop of Negro of African blood makes you a Negro.

So they already started with the Indian in 1790, making them black, making them half black by making them a ladder.

You have documents some of which you have showed me from people who were registers of vital statistics in the state of Virginia as late as 1943, that talk about stop letting people who are either Mellado or Indian register on the census as Indian, for fear that they will continue through this process.

And when they register as white, and then wanting to make sure that they continue to be registered as Negroes.

Is this kind of stuff still going on or what?

Yes, it is still going on in the sense that the Indian people have picked it up.

Now, if you are a person who has or marry a person of color, then you are removed from the tribe.

90% of the Indian tribes, there were nine tribes in Virginia that are state recognized.

All of them can, if one would go into their history, find that they do have Afro-American ancestry.

If people were to do this, it would seem to me and start to get some of those benefits like you did for your granddaughter.

It would seem to me the government would say, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

You're not going to do this.

You guys are just out to scheme something and get some benefits.

No, because they have destroyed or reduced a race of people to almost nothing.

And now, in order to reconstruct, we have to reconstruct a culture that has been wiped out.

What does this mean for the census of 2000, for the census in 2000, if you make a mistake on the census, then you have cut a portion of your financial throat, which means since Jewish people are getting reparations or applied for reparations for working for the Nazis, and the government has paid the Japanese for being interred somewhere along the line.

And there have been many requests that Afro-Americans received some reparations for being enslaved, that it may be possible.

But if the government does give you tools by which you can cut your own financial throat, a pencil, and a piece of paper on which you can state your race.

If reparations take place, they will not pay any biracial because there's no such thing.

They will not pay any tri-racial because they don't owe by and try nothing.

They were never enslaved.

No!

Okay, so you you'd better make sure that you put down African American or Native American, whichever you prefer, straight through.

Now you're going to have to be able to prove this and document it.

As you said, you've gone back and got genealogical societies to prove what your background is right!

That's not necessarily an easy thing to do, is it?!

Yes, it is easy.

If you know the keys by which it you go through to do the research.

Right out here in GreenTree, the Mormon Church of the Latter day Saints, Mormon, they have documentation that goes back to the first census on jus about everybody in this country.

Plus the National Archives has slave records.

So you just have to go look and you can find it.

How did you get into this?

I was told by my parents that if I wanted to know anything, you'll have to find it out yourself.

Why wouldn't they tell you the problem that exists with most of us people is the fact that we are victims of incest.

The plantation owner had one buck, and he did the fathering of man of the women on that plantation.

And we made more than likely 75% of all people of color are related one way or another.

And so the old folks don't want to talk about that because it's hurtful to them.

And so you have to follow the paper trail, what paper exists.

That's one reason the old folks used to tell you.

Now don't you mess with those folks down the street, because why don't we?

Why?

What's wrong with them?!

Their nice, churchgoing people don't bother those folks down the street, and they leave it at that.

They leave it at that.

But nine times out of ten, leaving it at that calls curiosity.

And finally you find out maybe that those folks down the street were your cousins.

What are you going to do with this?

Where are you going to go from here?

Well, from here I go on and spread the wor that these increments out there.

You don't have to be as the system says you are, you can go for what you know and what you want to be, but you've got a document it?!

That's right!

All right, Mr.

Humbles-Penn, thank you for being here on Black Horizons!

Thank you sir!

All right!