Queen Chief Elwin Warhorse Gillum, the host of Cookin’ With Chief, is the Queen of Tchefuncta Nation and the Chief of the Chahta Tribe. As appointed by the 365 Elders (Blood Members) of the Tribe, she was appointed the Chief of the Tribe in 1998 and took the throne of the Nation in 2009, when she brought the Nation out of exile. She has been married for 36 years and is the mother of three children. Prior to becoming the Tribal Chief, Chief Warhorse was a civil rights leader and served under the leadership of Dr. Joseph E. Lowery and the late Dr. Avery Alexander and numerous other Civil and Human rights leaders. She was a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a national board member, for 10 years and led the SCLC.
In 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010, she worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau on census representation in the American Indian Community. She worked countless volunteer hours, trained bureau staff and worked with the community to ensure representation. For her efforts, she received an award. In the 1990s Queen Chief Warhorse was presented with a Humanitarian Award by W.D. Mohammad, a Muslim leader, for her work as a Christian leader in the Muslim Community. In 1991, she created and developed the first minority/majority district in St. Tammany Parish to create a voter’s block for better representation.
In 2000, under President Clinton’s Administration, Queen Chief Warhorse was appointed as a member of the African Summit with a focus on minority issues. In 2004, she founded “Save the Chahta Indian Tribe,” a nonprofit organization that was initially created to work in disaster preparedness efforts. She formulated the Community Preparedness Response Network (CPRN) that brought all necessary emergency response agencies together, to respond in a coherent, efficient manner in emergency situations.
Queen Chief Warhorse hosts a podcast that gives the history of the Black Indian nations that’s inhabited the Americas from the beginning. Below is the transcribed edition of her first broadcast. This is the entire audio broadcast!
