Book
An Afro-Indigenous history of the United States
Publication Information
Boston, Massachusetts : Beacon Press, [2021]
Physical Description
xxv, 240 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Summary
The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America. Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled for freedom, sometimes together, and sometimes apart. Whether to end African enslavement and Indigenous removal or eradicate capitalism and colonialism, Mays show how the fervor of Black and Indigenous peoples calls for justice have consistently sought to uproot white supremacy. Mays uses a wide-array of historical activists and pop culture icons' texts, and foundational texts like the Declaration of Independence and Democracy in America. He covers the civil rights movement and freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, and explores current debates around the use of Native American imagery and the cultural appropriation of Black culture. Mays compels us to rethink both our history as well as contemporary debates and to imagine the powerful possibilities of Afro-Indigenous solidarity. Includes an 8-page photo insert featuring Kwame Ture with Dennis Banks and Russell Means at the Wounded Knee Trials; Angela Davis walking with Oren Lyons after he leaves Wounded Knee, SD; former South African president Nelson Mandela with Clyde Bellecourt; and more. -- Provided by publisher.
"Mays explores the relationship and differences between the Black American quest for freedom and the Native American struggle for sovereignty in the U.S"--
Contents
- Afro-Indigenous History
- Indigenous Africans and Native Americans in Prerevolutionary America
- Antiblackness, Settler Colonialism, and the US Democratic Project
- Enslavement, Dispossession, Resistance
- Black and Indigenous (Inter)Nationalisms during the Progressive Era
- Black Americans and Native Americans in the Civil Rights Imagination
- Black Power and Red Power, Freedom and Sovereignty
- Black and Indigenous Popular Cultures in the Public Sphere
- The Matter of Black and Indigenous Lives, Policing, and Justice
- The Possibilities for Afro-Indigenous Futures
- Sovereignty and Citizenship: The Case of the Five Tribes and the Freedmen.