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Old 01-16-2021, 05:49 PM
 
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What were things like for the Choctaw people during the era of racial segregation in Mississippi?

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Old 01-18-2021, 12:09 AM
 
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Does anyone know if whites of that time had a different relationship with Native Americans in comparison to their relationship with Blacks? Much of the racism towards Blacks seemed to be associated with avoiding race mixing as far as interracial marriages. I've noticed that whites have had less problems with interracial relationships with Native Americans historically.
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Old 01-18-2021, 10:52 AM
 
Location: NE Mississippi
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The 50's and early 60's:

During that time there were generally only 2 races recognized in the South.
You were either White or you were not. My sister is not White - she is Chinese - and is spite of being a beautiful accomplished classical ballet dancer she was shunned and ridiculed and treated as an interloper into the all white school system we both attended.
She graduated from High school in '60, from college in '64 and bolted from the South as quickly as she could.


She was allowed to attend college in Alabama because she technically was not Black, and I imagine that Choctaws would have been allowed to do the same.


She now happily resides in North Carolina. She has a Masters from The Chicago Art Institute and has lived all over the world. Much of her life has been spent in Chicago, but she lived in New Zealand long enough to become a citizen, and spent several years in Kenya.

The wounds of her childhood have long been healed and forgotten.


In Mississippi, compulsory education did not arrive until very recently. Since education of children was not compulsory, in many cases it simply did not happen. Even today, it is not hard to find older citizens whose education is very, very limited.
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Old 01-18-2021, 02:36 PM
 
Location: Oklahoma
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Motion View Post
Does anyone know if whites of that time had a different relationship with Native Americans in comparison to their relationship with Blacks? Much of the racism towards Blacks seemed to be associated with avoiding race mixing as far as interracial marriages. I've noticed that whites have had less problems with interracial relationships with Native Americans historically.
Listener lived back in the segregation days so I'd say he knows what he is saying concerning this issue.

However, one difference between blacks and Native Americans in that era is that there were lots of blacks and very few Native Americans. Currently Mississippi has over 1 million black residents and only 10,000 Choctaw. I believe in 1940 there were only 1500 Choctaw and they were all coalesced in and around the Neshoba County area (Philadelphia). I believe that while Native Americans were considered "colored" at the time they were mostly just forgotten about.
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Old 01-19-2021, 09:22 AM
 
Location: Jack-town, Sip by way of TN, AL and FL
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I think many Native Americans and whites have been intermixed for years. I know many 'white' people who have Native American bloodlines.
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Old 01-19-2021, 04:52 PM
 
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Another thing I thought about was how much did reservations reduce the amount of racism that Southeast Native Americans would have to deal with?

The southeast has tribes with four reservations that I'm aware of. There's a Seminole reservation in Florida,one for the Creeks in Alabama,one for the Chitimaca in Louisiana and the Choctaw in Mississippi. So maybe the sovereignty of those reservations played a part in reducing the amount of Jim Crow racism that they would experience on their reservations?
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Old 01-19-2021, 07:41 PM
 
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Originally Posted by Mississippi Alabama Line View Post
I think many Native Americans and whites have been intermixed for years. I know many 'white' people who have Native American bloodlines.
Haha, my whole life, I've heard stories of a Choctaw great grandmother on my maternal side. Many others I know around my age also claimed a Choctaw or Chickasaw ancestor. Well at least in my case, 23 and Me shows me 87% English/Irish and the rest French/German, so no Native American's in my tree. I've always credited my woodsmanship, excellent sense of direction and deadly hunting and fishing skills to my Native American ancestors. The English just aren't known as outdoorsmen!
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Old 01-19-2021, 09:32 PM
 
Location: Oklahoma
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Motion View Post
Another thing I thought about was how much did reservations reduce the amount of racism that Southeast Native Americans would have to deal with?

The southeast has tribes with four reservations that I'm aware of. There's a Seminole reservation in Florida,one for the Creeks in Alabama,one for the Chitimaca in Louisiana and the Choctaw in Mississippi. So maybe the sovereignty of those reservations played a part in reducing the amount of Jim Crow racism that they would experience on their reservations?
Again, even today all those reservations are really tiny in terms of size and population. It is my impression that these folks stuck together more than the tribal members who were removed to Oklahoma. In Oklahoma the southeastern Tribes (5 civilized) have huge numbers of members and many if not most of them are mixed out here.

Much of this was because in the pre Oklahoma statehood years the Tribes used whites for sharecroppers and after in late territorial days the federal government gave allotments to individual tribal members and sold off the excess territory. So suddenly whites and Indians lived next door to each other as landowners AND sharecroppers (as well as some blacks who either came here as slaves or later as sharecroppers and land owners). As a result, the mixing of Whites and Indians and Blacks and Indians occurred several generations ago.

From what I understand from the Natives that I know here. They say that the people who stayed in the homelands are much more pureblood than the ones we have in Oklahoma.

It is interesting that out of 10000 Mississippi Choctaw, 8000 can speak the language. In Oklahoma we have 85000 Choctaw and only 10000 speak the language. There are approximately 135000 members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma who do not live in the state of Oklahoma.

I know that doesn't really answer the question about Jim Crow but I do think it stands to reason that the different tribes in the southeast didn't really engage white people much more than they had to back in those days.
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Old 01-20-2021, 12:16 AM
 
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Found this on wikipedia.

Quote:
The Choctaw, who for 150 years had identified neither as white nor black, but were discriminated against as people of color, were "left where they had always been"—in poverty. Donna Ladd wrote that a Choctaw, now in her 40s, remembers "as a little girl, she thought that a 'white only' sign in a local store meant she could only order white, or vanilla, ice cream. It was a small story, but one that shows how a third race can easily get left out of the attempts for understanding." The end of legalized racial segregation permitted the Choctaw to participate in public institutions and facilities that had been reserved exclusively for white patrons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missis...War,_and_1960s
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Old 01-22-2021, 10:10 AM
 
Location: Southeast Arizona
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Jim Crow was a bit of a racial game-changer.

I've done a fair bit of reading on how the remaining Choctaws that were left in Mississippi in the 1860's were treated before and during the Civil War. Basically trying to gauge how they fell into the racial chaste system. While not vaguely even seen as equals, the Choctaw served pretty proportionally in the Confederate Army, in integrated regiments. And had representation in the Confederate Congress.

Ironically, they're station was mildly better before the Civil War than after.
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