The following article was taken from : http://www.baconsrebellion.com/Issues05/01-31/Curious.htm)

Was Elvis a Melungeon?

Elvis with Mahalia Jackson and Barbara McNair

Elvis was born far from the hills of southwestern Virginia in Tupelo, Miss.

Elvis and Brook Benton

Elvis with BB King

But researcher Brent Kennedy, a college administrator in Wise, theorizes that the King, as well as Abraham Lincoln and Ava Gardner, might trace their ancestors to the mysterious Melungeons.

These dark-skinned, blue-eyed people were first documented in Virginia’s Blue Ridge in the late 1700s. Over the years, various myths about their origin arose.

Some believed they were either survivors from the Lost Colony of Roanoke or Portuguese shipwrecks. Others suggested they were descendents of one of the lost tribes of Israel or of early Carthaginian or Phoenician seamen.

Kennedy’s controversial 1994 book, The Melungeons:The Resurrection of a Proud People, is credited with reviving interest in this “little race.”

He offered a theory, still debated today, that the mixed-race group can trace its lineage to Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the 16th century and perhaps their Turkish sailors and slaves.

The Mediterranean and Middle Eastern settlers later intermarried with Native Americans and freed slaves.

Prior to Kennedy, sociologists and anthropologists had referred to Melungeons as “tri-racial isolates,” with Scotch-Irish, Native American and African-American origins.

Kennedy, who is a native of Wise, became interested in Melungeons when he was diagnosed with a rare disease that was most common among African Americans, people of Mediterranean descent and New England’s Portuguese immigrants.

He had always been told his heritage was Scotch-Irish, despite physical evidence–swarthy family complexions–to the contrary.

Not only is Melungeon racial heritage clouded in mystery, but even the term has obscure roots.

In the 17th century, the French encountered Mediterranean-skinned people with straight black hair, fine European features and high cheekbones in the North Carolina hills.

They called themselves “Portyghee.” Thus, some scholars argue that “Melungeon” is a variation of the French “mélange” for “mixture” or “mixed-blood.”

Others believe the term derives from the Portuguese “melungo” or “shipmate” or has Turkish or Arabic roots meaning “cursed soul.”

What is universally agreed is that the dark-skinned Melungeons were discriminated against by their Anglo-Saxon neighbors.

Because they were thought to have intermarried with blacks, they were declared “free persons of color.”

Melungeons were denied such rights, as the right to vote; own their own land; educate or send their children to school; defend themselves in court; or intermarry with anyone other than a Melungeon.

The term itself became an insult.

As the Scotch-Irish immigrants moved down the Shenandoah Valley, they pushed the Melungeons farther and farther into the remote hills and valleys of the Appalachians.

As interest in Melungeons revives, however, more and more individuals are finding hidden clues in family trees. Estimates of those with Melungeon heritage range from 5,000 to 75,000.

At the first gathering of people of Melungeon descent in Wise in 1997, organizers expected 50 or so participants.

Instead, 500 attended.

They came to explore family stories of “Portuguese” blood; why an ancestor changed his surname from “Duck” to “John Adams;” or a family that referred to itself as “Black Dutch.”

Four years later, at the now-annual gathering, Kevin Jones, a University of Virginia College at Wise biologist, reported on a two-year study of Melungeon DNA.

Studying about 120 mictochondrial DNA samples of Melungeon people, five percent had Native American ancestry on the female side and five percent had African and African-American ancestry on the female side.

Elvis and his mamma

The remaining 90 percent was “Eurasian,” which can be traced to northern Europe, the Middle East, India and the Mediterranean.

He concluded that Melungeons have European, African and Native American ancestry, as early scholars believed, but also genetic commonalities with groups in Turkey and northern India.

But, he cautioned, being a Melungeon is not defined by genetics alone. A person might also believe they are Melungeon because of oral tradition, genealogy or family history.

“Melungeons are a self-defining population,” he explained.

Whether Melungeons are a race or a culture may never be resolved.

But in Cesme, Turkey, sister city to Wise, they are definitely remembered. Located on the Aegean where ancient sailors roamed, the city has renamed a nearby peak, “Melungeon Mountain.”

We think Elvis, Abe and Ava would be proud.

Elvis’ daughter and grandchildren

Larger photo shot of Elvis and Brook Benton

(End of article from Bacons rebellion)

Recently a large group of Melungeons took DNA tests and the results showed that their ancestry was primarily a mixture of European women and African men.

Most likely during the early history of colonial America, when many Caucasian indentured servants got married to people of African descent.

Laws were later passed in the colonies, that forbade these type of inter-racial marriages.

These mixed couples and their children experienced discrimination from many Caucasian colonists.

Later the families of these mixed union established their own settlements and towns; in order to avoid discrimination.

Many Caucasian Americans today, are descendants of these mixed race union.

THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT ABOUT MELUNGEONS IS FROM http://www.irjci.blogspot.com:

Kathy Lyday, a professor at Elon University in North Carolina, has researched Melungeons appearances in periodicals and literature for the past century. She spoke with Dale Neal from the Citizen-Times in Asheville about seeing Melungeons in newspapers as a child. “Melungeons are clearly not like the mountaineers I knew,” Lyday told Neal. “They look different. They have darker skin, darker hair and blue eyes. In older photos, their physical appearance looks almost Mediterranean or Middle Eastern.”

Researchers have re-defined Melungeon as tri-racial, theorizing that they are descendants of Europeans, Africans and Native Americans.

In 2012, however, the Journal of Genetic Genealogy released a DNA study that reported families historically called Melungeons “are the off-spring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin.”

Today, Melungeons stretch across East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and into areas of Eastern Kentucky.

At a time when mixed ethnic backgrounds are becoming a more comfortable topic of conversation, emerges a peculiar people who can declare they do not have the racial identity of one-half or one-third of an ethnicity.

Melungeons can identify, rather, as wholly sub-Saharan African and European.

The “invention” of the Melungeon race and the unraveling mystery of their origins bring new clarity to a muddy and infamous past of race relations in America, Miller writes.

“There may be a deeper honesty, and a kind of idealism, in this voluntary embrace of a mixed-ethnic background—a make-up common to millions of Americans, but which many remain reluctant to acknowledge,” Miller writes.

“And there is something optimistic and timely about the vision of race that the Melungeons imply. These days, on university campuses and beyond, the old, humanistic faith that everyone is the same at heart has been ousted by an essentialist idea of black- and whiteness, which sees the experiences of each as distinct, even mutually incomprehensible.”

“The grievances that underpin this attitude are often legitimate, but the result is that race in America can sometimes seem like a prison.”

“The notion of racial categories as fluid and optional, even invented, is a refreshing counterpoint to this ossifying sense of unbridgeable difference.”

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Jack Goins

DID ELVIS PRESLEY SAY SOMETHING RACIST ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICANS?

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READ ALSO:

Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ wife was a mulatto (she was of African descent) At least 1/3 of all Caucasian Americans who can say that any one of their ancestors were already living in the Americas, from the 17th century up until the present; have some African ancestry. Look at the African American wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis in the 19th century (photo in the article below). She was obviously of African descent. Many Caucasians then and even now, cannot tell a Caucasian looking person who is of African descent; from a Caucasian without any ‘recent African ancestors.’ I say recent African ancestors because, all Homo Sapiens on this Earth originated from the continent called Africa. https://chiniquy.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/confederate-presidents-wife-was-of-african-descent/ READ ALSO: WALTER WHITE, THE BLONDE HAIR, BLUE EYES AFRICAN AMERICAN LEADER OF THE NAACP https://chiniquy.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/walter-white-mr-naacp/

READ ALSO: PASSING AS ‘WHITE’ “I’d never seen my mother so afraid. “Promise me,” she pleaded, “you won’t tell anyone until after I die. How will I hold my head up with my friends?” For two years, I’d waited for the right moment to confront my mother with the shocking discovery I made in 1995 while scrolling through the 1900 Louisiana census records. In the records, my mother’s father, Azemar Frederic of New Orleans, and his entire family were designated black.” Click below to read the article. https://chiniquy.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/my-mother-spent-her-life-passing-as-white-discovering-her-secret-changed-my-view-of-race-and-myself/

AND: This is the true reason for the Seminole Wars in Florida The first slaves of African descent who came to what is now the USA; went to the Spanish territories ; not to the English colonies.”

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Thanks.

HERE ARE A FEW PEOPLE WHO HAVE AFRICAN BLOOD FLOWING IN THEIR VEINS.

MANY PEOPLE ARE NOT AWARE OF THEIR RACIAL HERITAGE:

Carrol Channing

Patrick Mahomes

Ross Barkley

Wentworth Miller

Derek Jeter and father

Peter Wentz

THANKS FOR TAKING YOUR VALUABLE TIME, TO READ THIS ARTICLE 🙂

Read the autobiography of my first 13 years living in America , after leaving, Jamaica

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