Episode 31: Haunted By History

Political Junkie Podcast · Jul 17, 2023 · 40m

That was a February 2011 news segment recorded by journalist Sam Ford for WJLA TV, an ABC affiliate in the Washington D.C. area. In the first of two episodes about slavery among indigenous nations known as the Five Civilized Tribes, Ford explored the fact that his African American ancestors had been enslaved by members of the Cherokee Nation in the first half of the 19th century. Ford’s family members were then transported to Oklahoma Territory when the federal government expelled those who held them in bondage from their ancestral lands in the Southeastern United States.

Over the course of…