New documentary film about Tennessee's Melungeons to show in Wytheville...

[carolinayellowdog]

I'm one of the presenters at this conference, and like many of us was dismayed by last year's publicity re DNA that indicated Melungeons are reluctant to acknowledge their African ancestry. Melungeons have been enthusiastically embracing their tri-racial background for the five years I've been involved in these events. This new documentary even includes a scene of Obama being regarded by Melungeons in an interesting (entirely favorable) context as someone who gave dignity to all mixed-ethnicity peoples.

Wytheville (June 17, 2013) – The new film THE MELUNGEONS OF VARDY VALLEY explores the history of a unique tri-racial Appalachian community struggling to understand its roots. When Troy Williams, who grew up in remote Vardy Valley, TN, decides to undergo DNA testing to explore his mixed-race ancestry, his family is divided over the implications. For years, even the word “Melungeon” was taboo in an area where mixed-race individuals were marginalized, stigmatized, and in some cases denied the right to vote, inter-marry, or own property.


THE MELUNGEONS OF VARDY VALLEY follows Williams’ own quest while chronicling the legends and rumors that have swirled around the community since the 18th century. With an original soundtrack, black-and-white watercolor graphics and HD cinematography from the ridges and hollows of north-east Tennessee, the film is an intimate portrait of community, ancestry, and family. On Saturday, June 29th, the film will air as part of the Melungeon Heritage Association’s 17th Union, and be followed by a panel of filmmakers and film participants, including Vardy’s Troy WIlliams, DruAnna Williams Overbay, Claude Collins, and filmmakers Todd Beckham, Marilyn Cheney and Ian Cheney.


Other sessions at the Union on Friday and Saturday will deal with different aspects of what it means to be a Melungeon today, and how history has shaped the group. Speakers will include MHA President S.J. Arthur, genealogical researcher Jeanne Bornefeld, Dr Elizabeth Hirschman (Rutgers University), author K. Paul Johnson, Dr Kathy Lyday (Elon University), MHA Treasurer and genealogical researcher Phyllis Morefield, Dr Terry W Mullins (Concord University), Johnnie Gibson Rhea (interviewed in a new public radio documentary about Melungeon DNA), Dr Arwin Smallwood (University of Memphis), Stacy Webb of the Redbone Heritage Association, author Wayne Winkler, and Scott Withrow (North Greenville University).


The Melungeon Heritage Association was established in 1998 and holds annual Unions to celebrate and study the heritage of mixed-race communities and groups throughout the southern and eastern United States. This year's Union, the 17th, will take place from 9 am through 5 pm on Friday, June 28 and from 9 am through 3 pm on Saturday, June 29. Friday activities are free of charge to MHA members (new members are invited to join; dues are $12/year.) Full day registration on Saturday is $10, or $5 for just the film and panel in the afternoon. The screening will begin at 1:30 on Saturday, June 29.

[hedgehog]

1. Your posting reminded me of a question I have -

I read War against the Weak, by Edwin Black and became curious about the people living in rural poverty who were condemned as unfit. I'm wondering how often this term was applied to mixed race communities (I'm not certain if all these communities identify as Melungeon). The consensus of the early 20th century establishment was that these people were not intelligent, but also that they were wily criminals! There is also the still commonly used slur that people living in remote mountainous areas are defective due to inbreeding.

To boil my question down to something that makes sense - how much of the eugenics movement in the US was aimed at mixed race people/communities? How much of this attitude remains common today?

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Still Common today

Sadly it is - are you familiar with the Tragic Mulatta/Mulatto Stereotype? She showed up as recently as the book/movie The Help.

[carolinayellowdog]

3. Virginia was highly organized and efficient in its eugenics crusade against Melungeons

Last edited Mon Jun 24, 2013, 01:08 PM - Edit history (1)

I've read that families singled out as "degenerate" in other contexts were also of mixed ancestry, like the "Jukes" who belonged to the group labeled "Jackson Whites" which now calls itself the Ramapo Mountain People. But nothing in any other state matches the crusade led by Virginia Vital Statistics chief Walter Plecker, who took it upon himself to reclassify 3/4 of Virginia Indians as "colored" and distribute lists of suspicious "mongrel" surnames to make sure whites didn't contaminate their bloodlines inadvertently.

This 1946 correspondence gives a taste of the man's character. The case of Carrie Buck, sterilized by state order, involved a woman of triracial background.

[hedgehog]

4. I didn't realize that Carrie Buck was mixed race. I was aware of how the three women involved were

all exploited by the white family involved. Based on the descriptions and locations, I thought the Jukes might be mixed race people, but the books I read didn't touch on that.

I get upset at the occasional reference here on DU to people who marry their cousins and/or are inbred. I doubt that anyone using those references realize that they are repeating pseudo-science of the worst kind!

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question!

[Number23]

5. WOW! I've never heard of Melungeons before

Thank you so much for posting this!! Fascinating!

When they say "tri-racial" I am assuming that is black, white and Native American, right? That sounds alot like Creoles.

Just answered my own question - http://melungeon.ning.com/forum/topics/frequently-asked-questions-about-melungeons

That whole page is a fascinating read. And it kind of reminds me of this http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/07/world/africa/gullah-geechee-africa-slavery-america

[carolinayellowdog]

6. Thanks-- I did the last revision of that FAQ

have been welcomed into MHA despite not being a Melungeon but rather a descendant of another mixed group. The phrase one often hears is "triracial plus"-- in that the European/African/Native American mix has been assumed for a very long time and established by DNA more recently, but it doesn't cover the whole story. Some of the European is southern, some of the African northern, according to DNA autosomal results, despite the fact that paper trails seem to go entirely to the British Isles and sub-Saharan Africa. Plus, people keep coming up with small amounts of South Asian, Middle Eastern, and Jewish ancestry. My own results have 3% Iberian which seems inexplicable whereas the 1.6% African makes sense according to the paper trail. DNA population matches for Melungeons and other mixed group descendants often include hits in places like Spain, Italy, and Tunisia; presumably all this goes back to Spanish presence in the Carolinas decades before the British arrival-- hundreds of soldiers of varied ethnicities arriving in the 1500s with the Juan Pardo expedition. The Tuscarora tribe had become quite thoroughly triracial by the time of the early 18thc Tuscarora War, and was then dispersed northward and westward, which may have something to do with Melungeon roots.

Folklore of and about triracial isolate groups includes self-identification as various kinds of "Indian," "Moors" (Delaware), "Turks" (South Carolina), "Portuguese" and "Cubans" (North Carolina). While there is some evidence for such things to be dismissed as manoevres to avoid acknowledging African ancestry, we find tales of such exotic ancestry on both sides of the color line. As for the "we are the descendants of the Lost Colony," you find that claim among Indian, black, and white North Carolinians too.

The most respected scholar in contemporary Melungeon circles is in the field of African-American history, identifies as black but also triracial, but has done a tremendous amount of work in Native American history-- Arwin Smallwood.

[carolinayellowdog]

7. followup re Kallikaks, Jukes, and Mildred Loving

I did some digging and talked to a Melungeon friend, and while we've both "always heard" that the Jukes and Kallikaks were triracial isolates, the evidence is much clearer in the latter case. This article "History and Legends of the Jackson Whites" notes that the man who wrote about the pseudonymous Kallikaks, H. H. Goddard, was also author of a study of the Jackson Whites. As for the Jukes, a recent expose of the pseudoscience of eugenics identifies their real surnames, but I don't see an overlap with those of the Ramapo Mountain People. Both the Jukes and Kallikaks were mocked with public displays of their photos. Here a site with some pictures of "Deborah Kallikak" whose real name was Emma Wolverton.

The whole business of accusing people of being inbred was particularly cruel because they were cut off from intermarriage with others by the isolation they suffered for being of mixed ancestry. Melungeons in Appalachian Virginia were targets of state efforts to prevent intermarriage with whites; there were not any blacks in the vicinity so their choices were rather restricted. While the isolation of triracials in New Jersey and New York was social rather than legal, the same result occurred-- they were disdained for "inbreeding" by the very people who left them no other choice.

Just now someone posted a set of pictures of Mildred and Richard Loving. Caroline County, Virginia, their home, was one of the places that Virginia triracials lived. While she has always been identified simply as African American, this article says that she self-identified as Indian. The community where she lived, Central Point, was regarded as triracial, and her photos tend to support the claim that she was part Native American and European.