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Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Educator & Activist

May 16, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Sa or Red Bird, was born in 1876 to a full-blooded Sioux woman and a white man.

She struggled with her mixed-race heritage as a chid on the reservation as well as off.  She received a scholarship to attend Earlham University where she studied violin.

Her activism began after she took a teaching position at the New England Conservatory where the school’s founder’s philosophy was “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”

She started writing essays against the movement to make Indian students relinquish their cultural identities.  In 1916, as an officer of the Society of American Indians, she was instrumental in the formation of the Indian Welfare Committee and wrote an investigation into the government’s mistreatment of Indian tribes–specifically, the defrauding of American Indians in Oklahoma of their oil-rich lands.  In 1926, she founded the National Council of American Indians, a lobbying group for American Indian legal rights.

Zitkala-Sa’s worked as an activist her entire life, but she also kept up her love for music and writing.  In 1938, her opera “Sun Dance” debuted on Broadway.  She died that same year.-Heidi Durrow


Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

 

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial, biracial historical figures, biracial history, growing up biracial, heidi durrow, mixed, mixed experience, mixed experience history month, mixed race historical figures, mixed race history, mixed roots festival, multiracial artists

Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Chocolat, famous circus performer

May 9, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

mixed race historical figures, biracial historical figuresChocolat (born between 1865 and 1869-died 1917 ) whose birth name was Rafael had no known surname.

Rafael was born in Cuba to an enslaved woman of African descent.

As a child he was taken to Spain to work as a servant.  He escaped his servitude at age 14 and earned a living doing various menial jobs and performing on the streets for a change doing strength and dance routines.

After the popular performer Tony Grice saw Rafael perform, Grice offered him an apprenticeship with the circus.  He was given the stage name Chocolat because of his dark skin.

In 1886, Chocolat debuted at the Nouveau Cirque.  Soon after, Foottit, a famous English clown, would hire him away from Grice.  Chocolat became part of several popular acts thereafter.  In 1890, Chocolat became Foottit’s regular partner.  Their act is described as a “routine between an authoritarian white clown, and a stupid poor Negro” who at the end of each sketch was slapped.  In 1905, Foottit & Chocolat as they were known lost their contract with Nouveau Cirque.  Their act ended in 1910.

Chocolat was a central cultural figure during his time.  He was the subject of several paintings and sketches by Toulouse-Lautrec; the model for popular soap advertisements; and the character inspiration for writers Colette and possibly Samuel Beckett.

Chocolat (nor Foottit) achieved the level of success in his continued performing career.  He died penniless at 49. – Heidi Durrow


Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial, biracial historical figures, biracial history, mixed experience history month, mixed race, mixed race historical figures, mixed race history, multiracial

Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Fanny Eaton, muse and model

May 4, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

mixed race historyFanny Eaton (1835-1924) was born in Jamaica.  She was the daughter of woman of African descent and a white man.  As a child, her family moved to England.  In 1857, Eaton married the man with whom she would have 10 children.

Eaton began modelling for the Pre-Raphaelite artists around the time that she got married.  In 1859, Simeon Solomon did the earliest sketches of her.  She would also serve as the muse to Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Albert Moore, Rebecca Solomon, Joanna Boyce and many others.  Her modelling career lasted for about a decade.

 

 

 

 

Eaton’s career may have been short but it was significant in the number of artists who were inspired by her as well as the fact that she was praised for her beauty as a black mixed-race woman during the Victorian era.

Eaton’s husband died in 1881 and by then she was working as a seamstress.  She died in 1924.-Heidi Durrow

Sources:

Fanny Eaton: The Black Pre-Raphaelite Muse that Time Forgot, AnOther March 7, 2016.

Fanny Eaton: Forgotten Beauty, Carribbean Beat by Judy Raymond Jan./Feb. 2017.


Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial historical figures, biracial history, mixed experience history month, mixed race historical figures, mixed race history

Season 4, Episode 4: Author/Historian Arica Coleman on Mixed-Race Black and Native American Connections

August 27, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

arica coleman book coverRECORDED 9/16/16: I had a fantastic conversation with Professor Arica Coleman, author of That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia.  Tune in live or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

 

 

Don’t miss this podcast about African-American and Native American connections with @alcphd #multiracial

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arica collage

arica colemanDr. Arica L. Coleman is an award-winning American historian whose research focuses on comparative ethnic studies and issues of racial formation and identity. Her additional research interests include indigeneity, immigration/migration, interracial relations, mixed race identity, race and gender intersections, sexuality, the politics of race and science, and popular culture.

Dr. Coleman is an evaluator of African American Programs for the Delaware Humanities Forum and a freelance contributor to Time Magazine’s History and Archives Division. She is also chair of the  ALANA Committee  for  the Organization of American Historians which focuses on the status of African American, Latino/a American, Native American and Asian American histories and historians within the history profession. She is the 2015-2017 chairperson for ALANA’s Huggins/Quarles Award and ALANA’s committee chairperson for 2016-2018. In addition, she serves on the Critical Mixed Race Conference 2017 Planning Committee.

Dr. Coleman received her doctorate in American Studies with a concentration in African American-Native America relations in North America from the Union Institute and University in 2005.  She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Scholarly Information Resources and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University during the 2006-2007 academic year.  In 2008, she was a summer Mellon Fellow for the Future of Minority Studies Consortium at Cornell University.

Dr. Coleman has held faculty appointments in Africana Studies at Widener University, the University of Delaware and Johns Hopkins University. In 2014, she was lead faculty facilitator for the UNCF/Mellon Faculty Fellows Domestic Summer Institute held at the University of New Mexico. The seminar titled In Search of Home: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Shared Experiences of Indigenous and Immigrant Populations in Colonized Spaces was developed in collaboration with UNM, The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, and the Laguna Pueblo Nation.

Dr. Coleman has lectured and presented papers at academic and public venues including The Organization of American Historians, The American Historical Association, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, MIT’s Conference on Race and Science, The National Holocaust Museum, The Virginia Forum, The United Cherokee Nation of Virginia Annual Meeting, and the Hampton Public Library.

She has also lent her expertise on matters of race and ethnicity to the Washington Post,Indian Country Today, History News Network, L.A. Progressive, NPR’s Another View, The Female View Broadcast, Native Trailblazers Blog Radio, CTV (Canada News), and the Virginia General Assembly House Rules Committee.

Her first book, That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia, a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2014, traces the history and legacy of Virginia’s effort to maintain racial purity and the consequences of this almost four hundred year effort on African American – Native American relations and kinship bonds in the Commonwealth.

Filed Under: Episodes Tagged With: biracial, growing up biracial, heidi durrow, mixed experience, mixed experience history month, mixed race, mixed remixed festival, mixed roots, multiracial, multiracial identity

Mixed Experience History Month 2016: Regina M. Anderson, playwright & artistic leader

May 20, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

mixed race historyRegina M. Anderson (1901-1993) was born of mixed-race ancestry.  She identified as “American” and was a leader in the black artistic community.

Anderson received a master’s degree in library science from Columbia University.  She worked as a librarian with the New York Public Library for more than 40 years.  Her home became a central hub for Harlem’s intellectuals and artists.

She was a founding member of the Krigwa Players, a black acting troupe with became the Negro Experimental Theatre.  Anderson was also a playwright who wrote under the pseudonym Ursula or Ursala Trelling.  Her work included Climbing Jacob’s Ladder (1931) and Underground (1932).

She is quoted as saying in 1981: “It gives me a great deal of personal satisfaction to have lived to see much of what we and other pioneers worked to achieve becoming a reality. However, we need more and more opportunities for our actors, writers, and directors.” Anderson died in 1993 in New York. –Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015.

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial, biracial artists, growing up biracial, heidi durrow, mixed experience, mixed experience history month, mixed race history, mixed roots, multiracial

Mixed Experience History Month 2016, James McCune Smith, doctor & abolitionist

May 16, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

mixed race history

James McCune Smith (1813-1865) was born free to an enslaved woman who later self-emancipated herself.  His father was a white slave owner.  Smith was an exceptional student, but was denied admission to universities because of his race.

Smith found a champion in an African-American minister who helped finance his education at University of Glasgow in Scotland instead.

He graduated at the top of his class in 1835.  He received his medical degree in 1837.  Smith returned to New York in the 1840s as the first university-trained black doctor in the country.  He cared for both black and white patients and worked tirelessly to help children specifically, the kids of the Colored Orphan Asylum where he practiced for 25 years.

Smith was the first university-trained black doctor in the US. #mixedrace #multiracial

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He was a prominent aboilitionist and wrote extensively against slavery including writing the introduction to Frederick Douglass’ autobiography.  Smith died in 1863 in Ohio where he served as a professor at Wilberforce College.  He was survived by his wife and five children.-Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015.

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial, growing up biracial, mixed experience history month, mixed festival, mixed race, mixed remixed festival, mixed roots, mixed roots festival, multiracial

Mixed Experience History Month 2016

May 2, 2016 by admin 1 Comment

mehm16 LarsenIt’s May and so our celebration of Mixed Experience History Month begins!

This the 10th year I’ve written this series and I have managed to find some really wonderful stories I hope you’ll enjoy.

I established Mixed Experience History Month in 2007 on my personal blog Light-skinned-ed Girl as a way of claiming a history and a voice that I felt had been denied me.

Part of the difficulty of claiming one’s identity in the Mixed experience is that we have no history.  Our stories have been written out of the texts to conform to what society has allowed us to say about our racial identities.  And usually that has either silenced our experience and/or simplified them.

It’s easy to celebrate Mixed Experience History Month!  Just follow along with the posts I’ll make each weekday in May profiling historical figures and events that relate to the Mixed experience.  This year I will be posting the blog profiles on my website The Mixed Experience in their entirety and in part on my personal blog with a click through link.

If you have ideas of people I should profile please email me at heidi(at)heidiwdurrow.com.  And remember this is history so I’m only looking for people to profile who have passed away!  P.S. Anybody know who this year’s badge features?–Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, 2015.

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial, growing up biracial, mixed, mixed experience, mixed experience history month, mixed race artists, mixed race history

Season 3, Episode 10: Author Sunil Yapa, Connecting Multiracial Experience with Global Identity

November 11, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Sunil Yapa Mixed Race WriterYour Hear is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

RECORDED 1/18/16: You know how you meet someone and you think: this person’s doing some really important work.  That was my impression of Sunil Yapa when I met him almost 8 years ago.  So it was particularly exciting to read his book, Your Heart Is A Muscle the Size of a Fist, and see the incredible reception it’s already getting.  You are going to love this book.  And you’ll love hearing more about his journey as a writer and the inspiration for this great story.  You can listen here or download the episode from itunes! – Heidi Durrow

Listen to @heididurrow interview with debut novelist phenom @sunilyapa  #multiracial #mixedrace

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Sunil Yapa on Heidi Durrow podcast

Sunil Yapa by Beowulf Sheehan

Sunil Yapa holds a bachelor’s degree in economic geography from Penn State University and an MFA from Hunter College. The biracial son of a Sri Lankan father and mother from Montana, Yapa has lived around the world, including time in Greece, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, China, and India, as well as London, Montreal, and New York City.

 

Filed Under: Books, Episodes Tagged With: biracial, biracial artists, mixed experience history month, mixed festival, mixed race, mixed race artists, mixed remixed, mixed remixed festival, multiracial artists

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Lucy Parsons, activist and

May 26, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

mehm15_lucy_parsonsBorn Lucy Eldine Gonzalez circa 1853 in Texas, Lucy Parsons was a social activist and known as a great orator.

She was the daughter of parents who were most likely of mixed Mexican, Native American and African American ancestry.  Parsons did not claim any African ancestry.

In 1871 she married Albert Parsons and settled in Chicago where their interracial relationship was better tolerated.

Parsons and her husband worked on behalf of the dispossessed including people of color and the homeless.  They advocated actively for the eight-hour day which ultimately led to Albert Parsons’ arrest and hanging on charges that he had conspired causing the Haymarket Riot in 1887.

Parsons wrote widely in journals about anarchist principles in various journals.  She helped found the Industrial Workers of the World  in 1905. Parsons’ activism continued well into her 80s.  She died in a house fire in 1942.-Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015

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Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Hiram Revels, legislator

May 22, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

mehm15_hiram_revelsHiram Revels (1822-1901) was the first African-American to serve in the United States Senate.  Revels was African-American and Native American, born to free people of color.  His first career was as a barber in his brother’s barbershop which he took over upon his brother’s death.  He started his education at age 22 and was eventually ordained as an African Methodist Church minister.

According to information from the State Library of North Carolina:

“At the conclusion of the [Civil] war, Revels settled in Natchez, Mississippi and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He continued his pastoral duties and founded new churches. In 1868, Revels was elected alderman. Struggling to keep his political and pastoral duties separate and to avoid racial conflict, Revels earned the respect of both whites and African Americans. His success in managing these forces led to his election as a state senator from Adams County, Mississippi. In 1870 Revels was elected as the first African American member of the United States Senate. Ironically, Revels was elected to fill the position vacated by Jefferson Davis almost 10 years earlier. Revels took his seat in the Senate on February 25, 1870 and served through March 4, 1871, the remainder of Davis’ vacated term.”

After his service in the Senate, he served as a university president, and remained active in his ministry.  He died in 1901.-Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

Filed Under: Mixed Experience History Month Tagged With: biracial, mixed, mixed experience, mixed experience history month, multiracial

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Host Heidi Durrow

Host Heidi Durrow

Heidi Durrow is the New York Times best-selling writer of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky and the founder of the original mixed roots film and book festival and now the founder of Mixed Remixed Festival , an annual film, book and performance festival, which will be held next on June 10-11, 2016 at … [Read More]

Recent Posts

  • Season 5, Episode 3: Award-Winning Writer Amina Gautier November 14, 2017
  • Season 5, Episode 2: New York Times Bestselling Writer Julie Lythcott-Haims October 12, 2017
  • Season 4, Episode 19: Writer/Literary Critic Janet Savage July 3, 2017
  • Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Paula Gunn Allen, writer and scholar May 17, 2017
  • Mixed Experience History Month 2017: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Educator & Activist May 16, 2017

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