An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

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oth deeply invested in Black civil rights activities, showed solidarity with their Indigenous comrades. Gregory had already participated and was arrested for participating in fish-ins with Native tribes in the northwest in 1966. 43 Both men participated in the signing of a petition seeking the United Nations to condemn the US of genocide. 44 It is not surprising that Black folks supported Indigenous peoples in their quest for international recognition through the United Nations. Black Americans had appealed to the United Nations in their fight for human rights during the postwar period, though that was largely quelled by the Cold War, anti-communist sentiment, Southern Democrats, and white liberals. 45 The gesture further demonstrates the possibilities for Black and Indigenous solidarity in the groups’ struggle against the US nation-state. 46 The aftermath of the Poor People’s Campaign showed how fleeting Black and Indigenous solidarity could be. Native folks and those who aligned with struggles like the Poor People’s Campaign wanted to challenge the foundations of American capitalism. They also wanted the US nationstate to respect tribal sovereignty. More established groups, like the National Congress of American Indians, did not want to involve themselves with “Black issues.” Native peoples’ radical vision of coalescing with other groups—while demanding a “new America” and asserting tribal sovereignty—was not the business-as-usual approach to things. The important lesson we can take from their organizing efforts is that they tried, and we must too. DENNIS BANKS AND THE BLACK SCHOLAR In 1976, Dennis Banks (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), a cofounder of the American Indian Movement, was on the run. He was fighting his extradition to South Dakota, where he was being called to stand trial on trumped-up charges. In his fight for justice and freedom, he also sought allies, and it’s not surprising that he connected with Black folks in solidarity —and that Black radicals, especially the Black Panthers, showed up for him. In June 1976, for the Black Scholar’s special issue on “The Third World,” Dennis Banks conducted an interview in which he gave an overview of the history, goals, and philosophy of the American Indian
Movement. He spoke of the racism that Native peoples faced. He also expressed the impact that Black activists had on Native people. The interviewer asked Banks, “What do you see as some of the more significant factors that have influenced the AIM organization?” Banks responded, “I think first of all, what has and it is unfortunate that what inspired AIM to get moving was the many deaths in this country of Native Americans—inspired us to get off what we were doing, which might have been nothing for many of us, and to get up and stand with the people who were standing already in the country.” 47 He then shifted into a treatise on the importance and meaning of Malcolm X. “Malcolm X was standing, and god damn it we should have been standing right along with him, no matter his beliefs,” he said, “because this man was fighting for social change in this country.” 48 The meaning of Malcolm X transcends generations and geographies; his story has influenced revolutionaries around the world, during his life and even more after his assassination. But Banks didn’t end there. He also paid homage to Martin Luther King Jr. as well as struggles facing Asian Americans, Chicanx communities, and even poor whites: I think we are going to win this, we are going to win a major victory pretty soon, and we should after so many hundreds of years. We have been divided. Indian people are being killed and we are the only ones fighting for Indian people. Blacks are being killed and only blacks are fighting for blacks. Poor whites are fighting for change in the poor white section. Asians and Chicanos are the same way. I think that inspired AIM to stand up finally and say look, we have got to pull it together, and that is where we are at right now, trying to bring non-Indians and the Indians together and bring about massive change in this country. 49 Banks understood the importance of solidarity with all oppressed peoples. Only through solidarity and unity can change occur. He believed that unless we are all free, none of us is truly free. I hope that, going forward, we can resurrect this idea of coalitions across races, across borders, especially as global capitalist exploitation, neocolonialism, and imperialism continue to impact us all, albeit at times in different ways. THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY Whenever I teach about the Black Panther Party, my Black students usually love it. They are enamored with young Black people brandishing guns to
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PRAISE FOR AN AFRO-INDIGENOUS HISTO
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REVISIONING HISTORY SERIES A Queer
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To Liseth, El Don, ChiChi
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CHAPTER SEVEN Black and Indigenous
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Indigenous people in our collective
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and places. In fact, the whole book
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INTRODUCTION Thousands of volumes h
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RECONNECTING DISCONNECTED HISTORIES
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solidarity between Black and white
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important to understand how the whi
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Indigenous peoples have sought ways
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need both movements, as both are he
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Some established (mostly white male
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meeting between a variety of Indige
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Atlantic Diaspora Connections (2009
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During every Black History Month in
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consciousness, and to a considerabl
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PAUL CUFFE Perhaps one of the earli
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Afro-Indigenous peoples in the Unit
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antiblackness. Finally, these exper
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America. There was so much we cover
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president-general and another counc
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the dehumanization of Native people
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On March 4, 1801, Jefferson, during
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lasting in its impact than that wit
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The Native person could not truly e
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CHAPTER THREE ENSLAVEMENT, DISPOSSE
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local autonomy—Reconstruction cha
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unpleasant, but we must try and com
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Choctaw owned 14 percent and the Cr
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surpassed those predecessors by per
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eaders to reconsider the role of In
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a time they moved back to Wisconsin
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white people were interested in rem
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of their resistance to white encroa
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liberation and women’s rights. Ty
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covered numerous topics in the spee
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commit the same sin that the nation
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had to change. They could no longer
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Still, Native people continued to s
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government’s boarding schools and
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civilization and its so-called virt
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function of the National Associatio
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treatment with white men, . . . [th
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In the post-Garvey era, after the U
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learned about the prolific and viol
Page 98 and 99: Eastman likely participated in the
Page 100 and 101: Du Bois’s paper offered a broad s
Page 102 and 103: and men to assert their right to ci
Page 104 and 105: CHAPTER FIVE BLACK AMERICANS AND NA
Page 106 and 107: gap we have today, are rooted in ea
Page 108 and 109: Black Americans remembered this Ind
Page 110 and 111: legacies have been tainted. People
Page 112 and 113: Here, King describes the root of ra
Page 114 and 115: working as a collective to achieve
Page 116 and 117: egistered in Mississippi. She helpe
Page 118 and 119: surprising if she did. The Choctaw
Page 120 and 121: understand history, how they practi
Page 122 and 123: indeed fought in every war since th
Page 124 and 125: US, given that the US was not Black
Page 126 and 127: Malcolm understood well the connect
Page 128 and 129: me think in terms of American’s i
Page 130 and 131: In the following scene in the docum
Page 132 and 133: the land, isn’t four hundred year
Page 134 and 135: For the majority of white Americans
Page 136 and 137: this growing unity is the best assu
Page 138 and 139: with hardly any people of color wil
Page 140 and 141: did their best to understand how th
Page 142 and 143: “It was not until Malcolm X came
Page 144 and 145: lived there. What about their claim
Page 146 and 147: and operates under a racist and imm
Page 150 and 151: challenge the assumed authority of
Page 152 and 153: Committee. BWLC, with Frances Beal
Page 154 and 155: international monopoly finance capi
Page 156 and 157: Conference on Indigenous Peoples an
Page 158 and 159: awarded until 2011, and discontinue
Page 160 and 161: CHAPTER SEVEN BLACK AND INDIGENOUS
Page 162 and 163: practices and incorporate them into
Page 164 and 165: e performing minstrelsy without eve
Page 166 and 167: influenced by racist oppression, th
Page 168 and 169: Beyond the specifics of this incide
Page 170 and 171: acism and sexism, as well as across
Page 172 and 173: there is hardly any chance in hell
Page 174 and 175: For example, in July 2007, in Detro
Page 176 and 177: No one wants to be a r*dsk*n. It is
Page 178 and 179: even absurdly funny. The use of the
Page 180 and 181: was trying to make. Jones responded
Page 182 and 183: Desus sarcastically adds, “How ca
Page 184 and 185: CHAPTER EIGHT THE MATTER OF BLACK A
Page 186 and 187: Indigenous and Latinx police, “sh
Page 188 and 189: protester and getting hit with them
Page 190 and 191: Native people’s use of tropes, sl
Page 192 and 193: CONCLUSION THE POSSIBILITIES FOR AF
Page 194 and 195: “they are the problem” and tell
Page 196 and 197: oppression and white supremacy. . .
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movements.” 14 We can learn from
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est to acknowledge the importance o
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Ta-Nehisi Coates’s fantastic arti
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possible. Our imaginations, coupled
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to people of African descent. I don
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2. You know how Indigenous Nations
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they treated? We should instead cen
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Indigenousness are not so different
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maintain African enslavement. For n
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opposed to her likely believe that
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS YOU DON‘T WRITE a
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Emory University. Thank you to the
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5. Patrick Wolfe, Traces of History
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the initiative strikes which open t
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13. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the
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28. Robert Dale Parker, ed., The So
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8. Andrew Woolford, This Benevolent
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6. Malinda Maynor Lowery, The Lumbe
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CHAPTER 6. BLACK POWER AND RED POWE
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47. William H. McClendon, “The Bl
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15. Abaki Beck, “Rendered Invisib
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1. Billy-Ray Belcourt and Lindsay N
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Name: The Harmful Consequences of P
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INDEX Please note that page numbers
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Beck, Abaki, 143, 144 The Beginning
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Chicago Defender (publication), 76,
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Dyson, Michael Eric, 140, 149 Eagle
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Hamilton, Charles, 110 Hampton, Fre
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Kaplan, Amy, 205n54 Katznelson, Ira
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Metacomet (chief), 60 Metropolitan
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N.W.A. (band), 161 N-word, as term,
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Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota leader), 6
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“The Souls of White Folk” (Du B
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Wheatley, Phillis, xxii, 8-10, 14,
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North and South American activists
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Dennis Banks and unknown woman at a
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Audience at a rally in support of D
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American Indian Movement member and
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