Shonda Buchanan: Who is Afraid of Black Indians?
Shonda Buchanan of Choctaw, Coharie, Cherokee & African Heritage is an Award-winning Poet and Fiction Writer.
Shonda was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she spent much of her adolescence curled up in libraries, bathtubs, and on her front porch, reading. Her book “Who’s Afraid of Black Indians?” is a difficult yet beautiful collection of poetry that peeks into one American family’s cultural window.
“Trust the first drum, your heart, for all your answers. The ancestors will follow…” ~Shonda Buchanan
Wanting to forget the past, this chapbook of poetry explores the journey Shonda’s ancestors took from North Carolina to Tennessee, to Indiana and finally Michigan, and the flight and fight to escape racial persecution and racial classification.
Yet it is also a book about the recovery of an identity–the intersection of Blacks and Native American Indians in this country. Shonda and her family, like so many other “bi-racial” Native American Indians, suffered from not knowing their full roots, and the ills of assimilation, all the while and enduring society’s ever-evolving definition of them. This book will hopefully help other Black American Indians, as well as bi-racial and tri-racial peoples, research, reclaim and celebrate their multifaceted heritage.
Full article at iloveancestry.com
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AUTHOR | HISTORIAN | ARTIST 