GETTING RECOGNIZED

Wade Black and Robert Thrower
Co-Producers





Summary: "Getting recognized" is a complex process for Native American individuals and for tribal governing bodies, poorly understood by the non-Native community, and a continuing source of tension between Native Americans and the broader non-Native population. This proposal requests funding for a one-hour video documentary on what "getting recognized" means as the contemporary expression of more than 200 years of conflict over culture, history, land rights, promises made and broken, and tribal sovereignty. The struggle to define tribal and individual Native identity is a national issue involving Natives and non-Natives alike, and remains central to any understanding of what it means to be Native today.



Introduction
For most Americans, "getting recognized" is a subject given little thought, usually involving nothing more than continuity of appearance among friends and acquaintances. It might involve some slight awkwardness if the interval since last encounter has been great, or if one's appearance has changed -- different clothes, a new hairstyle. But it is an informal transition, individual and momentary, with few important consequences, since it simply re-establishes a relationship that has already been acknowledged to exist.
For the Native American, "getting recognized" is an entirely different matter. It is a formal and sometimes arduous process, imposed by forces outside oneself, with major implications that involve the acknowledgement of one's culture, one's history, and one's heritage. For the Native American, "getting recognized" is the process by which one's community -- national, tribal, or peer group -- determines whether within that community one is permitted to "be" Native American. It is a formal process demanded of no other American citizens. Every other American is permitted to self-identify -- for employment purposes, to qualify for government benefits, to assume certain formal roles within the community. Only Native Americans must formally apply to have their cultural heritage acknowledged. They, alone among all Americans, must "get recognized."

For the Creek Indians in south Alabama, "Getting Recognized" has always been a consideration of great personal and inter-personal significance. For almost 150 years, the pressures to assimilate into the dominant white culture were enormous, determining where one stood within the local community in terms of access to privilege, the personal experience of prejudice, and the opportunities available to oneself and one's children. The process of getting recognized was an informal one, but one with importance implications. To be recognized as Indian meant a lifetime of second-class citizenship and a similar future for one's children. Inferior schools. Limited education. Restricted opportunities for employment. Minimal participation in the power structure of the community. Everyday encounters with prejudice. The arguments for self-identifying as white were compelling. The arguments for self-identifying as Indian were virtually non-existent. Much of the Native American community assimilated, either by inter-marriage or by obscuring one's cultural background.
Between 1900 and 1955, federal "Indian Money" twice became available in the Southeast. Suddenly there was a financial incentive to "be Indian." Each time, for a short period of time, a flurry of "Indians" came forward in the white community. Each time, after the Indian monies were distributed, there was re-assimilation into the white community. By the mid-50s, virtually all distinctive qualities of traditional culture had been lost in south Alabama, and the Creek community existed only as small isolated pockets of [mainly] low-income housing identified by the white community as "Indian." A few members of these communities continued to self-identify with pride, but for most it simply meant a status which they had not been able to escape.
During the 1940s, the Poarch Creeks under Chief Calvin McGhee began protesting their second-class status with roadblocks, meetings with local and state officials, and community gatherings. Renewed interest in Native culture during the 1950s and 1960s became a national movement felt even in such rural and isolated communities as Poarch, Alabama. The Civil Rights movement of the 60s accelerated Native protest. By the mid 70s, the local Creek community had reorganized as The Creek Nation East of the Mississippi (CNEM), which demanded and eventually received formal status as an Indian "band," qualifying it for federal and state programs. Tribal elders reestablished ties with the Creek community in Oklahoma and brought in Creek cultural specialists to help restore Creek cultural traditions. CETA projects in the late 70s focused on Native American culture (tribal documentation and traditional crafts). An annual fall Pow Wow was begun, at first strongly influenced by Western Indian traditions but gradually re-introducing more traditional Eastern Creek culture. Craftspersons from the Creek community began to travel outside the local area to fairs, folklife festivals, and other community celebrations. Meanwhile, CNEM continued to pursue tribal recognition. Finally, in 1984 , the Creek community around Poarch, Alabama, received formal recognition as a tribal unit, tribal lands were restored as reservation property, and the community formally reorganized as the Poarch Band of Creek Indians (PBCI). They "got recognized."

Suddenly, for both whites and Indians in south Alabama, there was again value in identification as Native American. A new problem was posed. Members of the "white" community began to self-identify as "Creeks." The process of assimilation reversed. Tribal membership assumed increasing financial, social service, and employment benefits, and individuals now had to come to PBCI offices to "get recognized" as Creek. Ironically, a local community that had once self-identified almost entirely as white seemed to become a community that self-identified almost entirely as Native American. Many individuals who had once avoided identification as Creek had to establish ties to a traditional Creek community they had previously shunned.
This double meaning of "getting recognized" has played a complex role in the Creek community of south Alabama. For years, the need to meet formal criteria for federal recognition provided cohesion and solidarity for a small, proud community that continued to self-identify as Native American. Then, after tribal recognition was granted, the tribal role swelled with new members whose interest in tribal membership was in many cases more economic than cultural. Tribal elections have become a complicated struggle for leadership by two competing community groups. Among the Creeks in south Alabama, tribal membership has grown dramatically, but tribal cohesion and sense of direction has become much less clear.

This film will look at the issues surrounding recognition within a national context while it focuses on the complicated history of "getting recognized" in Native American south Alabama. The long struggle for Poarch Creek recognition, and the tensions and conflicts that arose as a result of that process, parallel continuing national struggles over Native American recognition, especially in the resurgence of Native and tribal identification east of the Mississippi.
Using archival footage, stills, interviews, written and recorded oral histories, location videotaping, and historical records, and by comparing the Poarch experience with that of the MOWA Choctaws and the Florida Tribe of Eastern Creeks, two nearby Native communities that have been unable to secure federal recognition, Getting Recognized will look at the complex issues surrounding tribal and individual identity, the pressure to assimilate, differing perceptions concerning what it means to be Native American, and the tensions that arise as economic issues compete with cultural identity to determine the future of a Native American community.


Audience and Need

Native American history remains a national subject of fascination, but contemporary Native issues are still a minor topic in the national media. Despite extensive coverage of Native gaming in Connecticut, Minnesota, and South Dakota, virtually no one outside the Indian community can explain the legal and cultural issues involved in "being Indian." This is especially true for Native cultures east of the Mississippi River, particularly in the Southeast. When coverage of eastern tribes exists, it almost always focuses directly or indirectly on recognition rights, but it rarely provides the critical historical and legislative background that makes understanding these rights possible. Instead, it is almost always focused on gambling, an economic issue intricately connected to inter-tribal and native/white conflicts over recognition.
Recognition conflicts are widespread in the East, most visibly in New England, but in Alabama alone there are eight tribal communities recognized by the state but denied federal recognition. In Florida, five state-recognized Creek communities are seeking federal recognition. If the Lumbees in South Carolina achieve recognition, they will immediately become one of the largest tribal bodies in the country. The Catawbas in South Carolina were formally recognized only recently, restoring a status taken from them in 1959, and qualifying them for $50 million in federal reparation funds for treaty violations. Legislative recognition of the MOWA Choctaws passed the U.S. Senate in March, 1994, but failed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives. Other tribal communities in the Southeast appear close to recognition. Self-identification as Native American on the U.S. census has more than tripled since 1960. In Alabama, self-identification as Native increased 118 per cent between 1980 and 1990. Title V Indian Education programs are exploding throughout the South.
This is a national story important to both white and Native communities. It applies to every Native American community in which pressures to assimilate and prejudices against tribal peoples have divided and fragmented the history, culture, and sense of self that once united tribal groups. It has also pitted tribal communities against one another as both recognized and unrecognized groups of self-identified Native Americans compete for limited resources, treaty rights, tribal rights, economic self-interest, and formal federal and state recognition. Whether we are talking about conflicts between Navajo and Hopi in the Southwest, fishing rights among the Menominee in the Upper Midwest, or admission to tribal membership among the Pequod and Lene Lenape in the East, "Getting Recognized" is a major issue in Native American culture as tribal communities continue to struggle with what it means to be Native American.
The Poarch Creeks were the first "new" Native American community in the Southeast to receive formal recognition since the nineteenth century. Their story is a case study in the national recognition struggle, recent enough that it is still contemporary community memory, yet long enough ago that it demonstrates the stresses that recognition introduces within the Native community and between the Native and white communities. This project will focus on Poarch Creeks to provide a historical, legislative, and culture examination of recognition issues as they affect the national community.


Audience Development and Local Support

This project has its roots in the late 1970s, when the Poarch Creeks used CETA funds to establish a tribal media center for self-documentation of tribal community history. Wade Black was one of the CETA instructors and temporarily the Tribal Media Center Director, and Robert Thrower was one of the original CETA students. Changes in federal funding policies during the 1980s eventually forced the closing of this center, but in 1993 the Poarch Creeks resumed efforts to re-establish their media center. A 1993 proposal for documentation funding was declined by the National Park Service, but the Tribal Council used tribal funds to purchase basic equipment and used JTPA funds to begin re-training tribal personnel. In September 1993, Research and Development funding for Getting Recognized was granted by the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortiom (NAPBC). Project personnel have worked with Elizabeth Weatherford (Museum of the American Indians), Roberta Grossman (500 Nations), and Paul Steckler (Last Stand at Little Bighorn, Eyes on the Prize) for research and to identify additional Native crew members for participation in the project.
In July, 1994, the project completed negotiations to work cooperatively with the Center for Public Television (CPT) at the University of Alabama, a state of the art broadcast production facility. This will permit use of CPT field equipment, crew personnel, and online facilities, and will reduce production costs for this project considerably. CPT is the producer of the award-winning documentary series "The Alabama Experience," a weekly documentary series for Alabama Public Television, and such long-form documentaries as the recently completed 90-minute biography of Carl Elliott, the first recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for courage in politics. This arrangement will be the first time CPT has agreed to work cooperatively with an independent outside producer and it opens the door for future cooperative productions.
In addition, Robert Thrower has begun working with the Department of Broadcasting at the University of West Florida (UWF) in Pensacola to provide production training to tribal personnel in Poarch. The arrangements with both CPT and UWF will greatly increase the involvement of public broadcasting in the Southeast with Native subjects and Native production personnel.
We feel extremely encouraged by our success in negotiating these agreements, since they will also provide low-cost access to high quality broadcast equipment and facilities in a region where equipment access remains a serious problem for independent producers.

Project Personnel


L. Wade Black -- Co-Producer/Director
Wade Black Is an independent producer living in Birmingham, Alabama. His work has won numerous festival prizes and been broadcast or cablecast nationally on The Disney Channel, in syndication, on PBS stations, and on The learning Channel. He has had ties with the Creek community at Poarch since the late 70s, including a short period as CNEM Media Center Director and CETA instructor and more recent work documenting Creek tribal culture. Black is a 1993 WGBH Fellow in Advanced Television Production. His former wife and his son are Creek.

Robert Glenn Thrower, Jr. -- Co-Producer/Director
Robert Thrower is a Poarch Creek and the Education Director for Poarch Band of Creek Indians. After initial training in video and audio production as part of the CNEM CETA program, he studied film and video production at the University of South Florida. In 1982 he returned to Alabama, married, and began work as a Title V Indian Education Specialist for the Escambia County (AL) Board of Education. Since his appointment as PBCI Education Director, his work has involved him in regular contact with other state-recognized and self-recognized Native communities in Alabama and Florida. His PBCI responsibilities also include Director of the tribal media center.

Lori A. Sawyer -- Associate Producer/Researcher
Lori Sawyer is a Poarch Creek, the former Curator/Educator of the PBCI Museum Program, and a specialist on traditional Eastern Creek culture and history. She is also an active artist and craftsperson and appears regularly as a tribal cultural spokesperson at festivals and craft fairs.

Advisory Committee:


Gail Thrower -- Gail Thrower is the PBCI Tribal Historian and a nationally-recognized authority on tribal certification. She speaks regularly on tribal recognition issues, is a consultant on tribal recognition and individual certification, and reviews applications for PBCI tribal membership. She is also a traditional herbalist, craftsperson, and historian who has been featured on public television programs in the South as a Native spokesperson.

Elizabeth Weatherford -- Elizabeth Weatherford is the Director of the Media Section of the Museum of the American Indian/Smithsonian Institution in New York City, and a nationally recognized authority on Native American produced film and video. Her book on Native American media is the principal reference work in the field.

Roberta Grossman -- Roberta Grossman was Producer/Writer for 500 Nations, the eight-hour CBS documentary series on Native American history produced by Kevin Costner/Tig Productions and CBS. She was also Producer/Writer for the CD-ROM version of this series. She was also Producer for Patrick Duncan's Medal of Honor series, for which Wade Black field-produced five segments.


Other Production Personnel:
The producers are continually reviewing Native-produced films and videotapes to identify Native production personnel for principal cinematography and editing and other production positions. The Center for Public Television will provide additional crew.


This is a work in progress. More to come. #8->
Return to Wade's Construction Site
or go to Native Websites

Send comments, corrections, and suggestions to wadeblack@mindspring.com

Copyright © 1996 L. Wade Black. All rights reserved.