come on in and sit a spell

This publication is over 200 pages long, there is probably great information for Melungeons of any pocket/kinnet. Since I am from the diaspora that migrated to Detroit I noted those excerpts and their pages below for anyone this might interest.

"The mass exodus from the coal mines and hills of southern Appalachia to the industrial conglomerates of Detroit and Chicago illustrate the desire to escape not only the social hierarchies but also imposed ethnicity: hillbilly, redneck, white trash, poor, Melungeon. Our society’s emphasis on multiculturalism imbedded in pop-culture and mass media may offer a back door entrance into balancing the dichotomy of power between ascribed and chosen ethnic identities." (pg 14)

"Winkler (2005) wrote one of the most complete, thorough, and authentic texts about Melungeons to date. Noting his own family background, Winkler researched the geopolitical contexts of the mixed race group. Although his family migrated in the 1950s during the out migration to industrial cities like Detroit, Winkler recalls holidays and summer visits to southern Appalachia and Hancock County, Tennessee. [...] When I asked him how he knew he was Melungeon, Winkler paused a moment, then explained that his family was always considered Melungeon. He told me [...] that others had always considered his family Melungeon. Winkler’s (2005) book, Walking Toward the Sunset, outlines his discovery of his ethnicity." (pg 29)

"Fraley (2009) examines the history of discrimination that has continued against people of Appalachian origin that migrated to urban areas like Detroit and Cleveland. The discrimination is identified from early instances of newspaper ads suggesting, Hillbillies need not apply and employing racial profiling in city riots, as well as in the local ordinances regarding housing. Fraley (2009) finally reflects on the implications of legal protection methods for Appalachians as an “emergent ethnic-regional identity within an established democracy” (pg. 38)

There is a strange cult like hate group going by the name "Qarsherskiyans" that's been infiltrating multigenerationally tri racial and mixed race communities. Unfortunately Melungeon people have been at the top of their list but they've also targeted Lumbee, Metis, and Creole spaces as well. They start off by approaching people looking to reconnect with their Melungeon/Creole/Metis etc ancestry by acting like kin, and making claims to family lines they aren't actually related to, then the rhetoric quickly changes to racist extremism, cultural appropriation and invalidation and then targeted attacks on individuals if their attempts to convert them to their cult fails.

These people are not affiliated with any authentic Melungeon, Metis, Creole, Lumbee, or other historically multigenerationally mixed communities or tribes and nobody seems to know what their motive is. This is a new wave group that is trying to manipulate and facade as a historical tribe/isolate.

Please BEWARE of this community, I recommend not engaging and being incredibly careful if you choose to take a dive into this wild ass rabbit hole. If you are Melungeon or trying to connect with long lost kin by searching Melungeon groups or people on social media, now is more important than ever to vet your network.

If you can't tell me which kin network you come from, I'm not going to trust you. Y'all should probably operate accordingly as well. Because not only is this incredibly harmful and damaging to our already under documented and regularly invalidated, erased, rewritten, and sensationalized history and culture, it's dangerous. We don't know what these people are trying to do or why they are targeting the communities they are, but their intentions are clearly malicious.

Self portrait ✨

Hallelujah, jubilee

I can hear the angel band

I was blind, but now I see

And I will jump right in amongst them

When I reach the Glory Land 🤲🏽📿✝️

I rest on the porch steps of the places you can't find. I am the 3 headed dove, I am a kingdom lost to time.

I am your local holler haint, Aimlessly, unclaimed. I am a thing with no census. I am folklore without a name.

I am too rusted for the rest of them, Too forsaken for the hands of God. I am too cryptid for your city friends, Too sacred for the scholar's tongue. I got ancient blood in me, Iron-rich and river-fed, I am the pill that doesn't go down easy, I am the monster under the family bed.

I am your grass stained Sunday's best And the rouge upon your patella. I am the whispers never put to rest. I am your favorite mystery novella.

I am the secret never dared be spoke I am the skeleton in the hall closet I am the pedigree gone up in smoke

I am the Black Sheep's first born harlot.

"I Am Melungeon" Georgia Clyde Blair

ℍ𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕪 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔻𝕒𝕪 ❣️

"Firecircle"

In the hills, we all kin 🤷🏽‍♀️👣

It's funny how you don't realize how important it is to feel seen until after years of telling your husband that you prefer green beans from a can instead of fresh, and that you don't hate potatoes, in fact you love them fried, you just don't like them mashed. Nevermind, it's just little things. It shouldn't matter, you repeat inside your head. But the little things pile up like ant after ant on a forgotten slice of bread. You learn to swallow the lump in your throat and call it gratitude. You let your voice shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until it fits the room. Until it’s small enough to tuck behind the pepper or the salt, keep yourself from overboiling, careful not to stir the pot. You start folding yourself like freshly laundered clothes, creased just right to keep the peace. You say it’s fine and write some prose, but don't say the things you really mean.