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, “sacred”
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.