OHKE is a non-profit corporation that provides environmental education, arts integration
for grades K-8, youth development support services, and interpretive presentations
that include workshops, storytelling and performances regarding the cultures of Indigenous
peoples of the Americas and the Caribbean.
OHKE means “Mother Earth” in the language of the Wampanoag Indian Nation of Massachusetts.
Penny Gamble-Williams, founder and Executive Director of OHKE was the elected Sunksqua
(1995-2002) of the Chappaquiddick Tribe of the Wampanoags and currently serves as
Spiritual Advisor and Board Member. She is a visual artist, storyteller, spoken-word
performer, cultural presenter, and radio talk show personality. Thunder Williams,
co-founder and Chairman, Board of Directors of OHKE is a native of Trinidad and Tobago
and adds his rich Afro-Carib ancestry to the cultural network. He is a trial attorney,
photographer, cultural presenter, and radio talk show host and producer.
OHKE’s Youth Development Support Services include formulating curricula and conducting
classroom/workshop instruction. We access the boundless imagination and stimulate
creativity through “Spirit Art” (using found objects in nature for artistic expression)
and storytelling, among other things. By illuminating Indigenous peoples’ knowledge,
traditions, practices and their spiritual connection to Mother Earth we facilitate
the release of pent-up repression, denial, and psychic trauma.
OHKE curatorial endeavors led to an exhibition in 2009 at NMAI, “IndiVisible: African-Native
American Lives in the Americas”. Penny and Thunder were co-curators on the curatorial
team. They had submitted a concept paper and proposal in 2005 to have the story of
a rich heritage that was forged from the relationship between Red and Black people
in the Americas told at The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). The exhibit
was co-sponsored by the National Museum of African-American History and Culture and
is scheduled to be shown throughout the Americas.
Washington—Penny Gamble-Williams remembers times when people accused her of lying
about her Native ancestry because they saw her as African American.
The former Sunksqua or female sachem of the Chappaquiddick Band of the Wampanoag
Nation of Massachusetts shared the experiences with the American Indian News Service
in an interview about the upcoming exhibition “IndiVisible: African-Native American
Lives in the Americas.” She and her husband, Thunder Williams, lead the Ohke Cultural
Network Inc. which submitted the proposal for the exhibition to the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of the American Indian.
“I have been an activist in movements—AIM, Women of All Red Nations and others. At
a meeting of the Black Panthers in the 1970s, they told me that I had to choose.
“You are either black or Indian, you can’t be both.’ I made my choice.”
The experience reminded Gamble-Williams of the time her fifth-grade teacher walked
up to her desk after reading an essay about her summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.
Squeezing the young Gamble-Williams’ shoulder, the teacher said, “It’s not nice to
make up stories. Everyone knows the New England Indians are dead.”
Gamble-Williams, who is descended from African American and Alabama Creek on her
father’s side and African American and Chappaquiddick/Wampanoag on her mother’s,
is a visual storyteller and cultural presenter. She serves as spiritual leader of
the Chappaquiddick Band of the Wampanoag Nation of Massachusetts (www.chappaquiddick-wampanoag.org).
Thunder Williams, whose lineage is Carib Indian, African and European, emigrated
from Trinidad and Tobago at age 5. Both have been active in the African American,
Native American and Afro-Caribbean communities. For the past decade, they’ve hosted
The Talking Feather Radio Show on Radio One WOL 1450 AM in Washington, D.C. It is
also broadcast on Blog Talk Radio at www.blogtalkradio.com/talkingfeather. They joined
American Indian News Service Editor Kara Briggs for an interview recently.
Kara Briggs: Why is the IndiVisible exhibition important for America?
Penny Gamble-Williams: This exhibition, IndiVisible, is valuable because it helps
all people formulate another way of looking at the history of this country. We cannot
obfuscate the facts of American history, deny that genocidal practices nearly wiped
out an entire race of people or refuse to acknowledge that two richly diverse indigenous
civilizations, the African and Native, mightily contributed to the wealth and prosperity
of the Americas.
Thunder Williams: African-Americans and Native peoples stood together in the cotton
and tobacco fields. We were often literally chained together. We were bonded through
the tyranny of oppression and colonization. We intermixed and intermarried on the
Underground Railroad, the forced removals across Turtle Island and the resistance
in maroon colonies. All these experiences give us a rich shared heritage.
Kara Briggs: Penny, you grew up in Providence, R.I., not far from Chappaquiddick
and the island homelands of the Wampanoag. You were saying that the tribe was a whaling
tribe originally?
Penny Gamble-Williams: Chappaquiddick men were whalers historically, and after colonization
they had to go out on the whaling ships to make a living. Whaling was one of the
toughest jobs during that time and because the men were out to sea for long periods
of time, sometimes years, it took a toll on the elders, women and children. Some
of the men never returned home, either, because of death or settling in other parts
of the world.
Thunder Williams: As the Native men went out to sea, African American and other foreign
men who worked in the surrounding areas of the islands intermarried and became part
of the tribal community.
Penny Gamble-Williams: My great-great-great aunt, Sarah Brown, who was Chappaquiddick,
married a black whaling captain, William A. Martin. His great-grandmother had been
enslaved on Martha’s Vineyard Island and was owned by the Bassett family. When I
was Sunksqua of the Chappaquiddick from 1995 to 2002, Thunder and I traveled to London
and conducted research in the British Museum, the Guildhall Library, Oxford and the
Maritime Museum. It was amazing to see documents that related specifically to the
Chappaquiddick and other Wampanoag Bands of Massachusetts, as well as Narragansett
and Pequot.
Kara Briggs: What did you learn personally through that research?
Penny Gamble-Williams: Most of the European American whaling captains were well off
and had stately homes in Edgartown. William and Sarah lived in a humble home that
he built on Chappaquiddick. The house still stands and is privately owned. It needs
major repair. There is no plaque showing the history of this black whaling captain.
He and Sarah were married for 50 years. (Editor’s note: As this issue went into production
the New York Times published an article about the current owner of William A. Martin’s
house putting it up for sale.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/us/04chappaquiddick.html.)
Kara Briggs: Three generations before you, your relatives lived on the Chappaquiddick
Reservation, were allotted land and owned houses. But in your childhood Chappaquiddick
was anything but home.
Penny Gamble-Williams: I heard the stories and spent time with the elders of my family.
I enjoyed every summer until I was 16 years old on Martha’s Vineyard in Oak Bluffs
on Wamsutta Avenue. On some occasions we’d get in my uncle’s convertible and take
a trip to Chappaquiddick. That’s where my mother would talk about the land and family.
I’d say, ‘Why can’t we get out and walk around?’ My mother never wanted to.
Thunder Williams: Even now when you talk about the Chappaquiddick Indians, the current
residents on Chappaquiddick Island, who are 99.9 percent European, seem threatened
or guilt-ridden or noticeably indifferent.
Kara Briggs: In reconstituting your nation and reclaiming nation’s ties to Chappaquiddick
Island, you faced court battles with residents even to have access to that burial
ground. They were claiming that you weren’t Wampanoag.
Penny Gamble-Williams: Every Chappaquiddick family had title to the land that had
been allotted in the 1800s. Most had to move from the island in order to make a living.
My family moved to Nantucket, New Bedford and Providence. The ties were never broken.
When I grew up I had my map with lots of information about family land on the reservation.
Kara Briggs: You and your family have been culturally active for decades. There are
Chappaquiddick/ Wampanoag burial grounds on the island that have become gathering
places for your people. But there was resistance to your reclaiming those places.
Penny Gamble-Williams: On occasion when my family got letters from attorneys representing
parties who owned land in common with us, they would ask me, ‘Why are you trying
to hold onto this land when you are not even Indian?’ They felt that because I didn’t
grow up on Chappaquiddick I knew nothing about the land or the culture. They were
wrong. Because of all these experiences we decided to have ceremonies on Chappaquiddick
at one of the burial grounds where many of our relatives had been buried.
Thunder Williams: It’s normal for Europeans to visit their burial grounds, but if
Native people want to pay homage to their ancestor and do ceremonies in their spiritual
tradition they seem not to understand. They seem not to understand our deep-rooted
spiritual bonding to Mother Earth and the healing nature of walking on the land,
not selling it and not building trophy houses on it.
– By Kara Briggs, American Indian News Service
For over thirty years Penny Gamble-Williams has been an activist involved in Native
American land, freedom of religion and sacred site issues, Indigenous and environmental
rights. She is a member of the Chappaquiddick Band of the Wampanoag Nation of Massachusetts
and was instrumental in re-constituting the Chappaquiddick people, monitoring repatriation
issues in respect to the Chappaquiddick, reviving the ceremonies and language. In
1996, Penny traveled to England to research documents pertaining to the Chappaquiddick
Wampanoag. In 1995 she was elected Sachem, (Chief), and served for seven years. Since
2002, Penny has served as Spiritual Leader for the Chappaquiddick people. Penny,
who was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, was exposed to music through
her father who was a jazz musician and enjoyed drawing, painting and doing crafts
with her mother who was an artist. Penny was mentored by several renowned artists
in Rhode Island and studied at Rhode Island School of Design. Penny moved to Washington,
DC in 1972 and attended the Cochran School of Art and Maryland College of Art and
Design. She created art in her studio in Historic Hyattsville, worked with children
in an aftercare program. In 1992 to express her cultural heritage she co-founded
a storytelling collective called “The Painted Gourd, Red and Black Voices.” The group
comprised of four Indigenous people, performed and lectured on the historical connection
of Native American and Africans before Columbus to the present. They presented their
program in public schools, libraries, colleges and government institutions throughout
the East Coast. As a cultural presenter, Penny has presented at University of Maryland,
Howard University, Brown University, American University, Georgetown, George Washington
University, and George Mason. Through her non-profit organization, Ohke Cultural
Network, Inc., Ms Williams conducts teacher training workshops in public and private
schools and works with children of all ages throughout the Washington, DC metropolitan
area. She uses storytelling, art, music and movement to actively engage and involve
the children as they learn about the Native and African American historical connection.
Penny Gamble-Williams produces and hosts a radio talk show called the “Talking Feather.”
The program debuted January 2000 on WOL 1450 AM, a radio station owned by Radio One.
The broadcast can be heard every Sunday live on the internet from 11:00 until 12:00
noon at www.wolam.com. The talk show explores critical issues and concerns dealing
with health, environmental matters, history and culture of Native Americans, African
Americans and Indigenous People around the world. The “Talking Feather” aired nationally
on XM Satellite Radio from October 2001 to March 2004. Penny has produced other radio
programs dealing with Native American women in the arts and Native American spirituality
on WPFW FM Pacifica Radio. She also serves as a consultant on matters dealing with
Native issues for Radio One. Penny has captured her life experiences which are expressed
in several artistic formats. As a mixed media artist, she has exhibited her paintings
throughout the East Coast. Penny has written several plays such as Whalin, Environmental
Blues and performed a play she co-wrote called Remember the Sweetgrass in New York
City at NBC’s PSNBC Showcase Theater. She worked at the former American Theater and
the REP., INC., formally the DC Black Repertory Theater in Washington, DC, where
she did sets, lighting and sound. She studied with the late improvisational actress,
playwright, director and producer Rebecca Rice, and has performed on Maryland Public
Television, Museum of Natural History, National Portrait Gallery and radio. Penny
is documenting her stories, poetry and music on CD which will be released soon. Her
son, pianist Marc Cary is recording, arranging and producing this project.
