An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

Eastman was influenced by the US nation-state and the Dakota world, as
well as his interactions with other tribal nations. He attempted to navigate a
world during a time when Indigenous peoples were searching for allies
among white sympathizers within the broader context of the United States’
thrust to become a global empire. Neither Du Bois nor Eastman considered
himself bound to the US nation-state.
In part, they shared ideas of belonging in the US on the basis of their
citizenship status. Black people were second-class citizens and Indigenous
peoples were not afforded citizenship until 1924, and were being
dispossessed in their own homelands. Both defined themselves through
their community and connections beyond blackness and indigeneity,
allowing them to insert themselves into a larger transnational world. Their
positions were sites of struggle that gave Du Bois and Eastman, as
representatives in the global struggle against Indigenous dispossession and
antiblackness, the tools to critique settler colonialism and neocolonialism
throughout the African diaspora and Indigenous communities.
Charles Eastman and W. E. B. Du Bois attended the URC for at least two
reasons. First, to expose the deep-seated racism and colonialism within the
United States. Second, and in keeping with the theme of the Congress, they
wanted to affirm the humanity of Black and Indigenous peoples. They
wanted to assert that they were human and deserved to be treated as equals.
They believed that a central component to fighting injustice was to advocate
for full citizenship. However, it is important to step back and remind
ourselves how different their relationships to the US nation-state were. In
addition, though Eastman did not necessarily have extensive relationships
with people outside the US, Du Bois was well versed in keeping European
relationships. With a graduate fellowship, he had traveled to Germany in
1892, where he also traveled extensively throughout Europe. Still, for
conceptual reasons Du Bois and Eastman are bound together.
Historian Frederick Hoxie argues that both the NAACP and the Society
of American Indians believed that “securing U.S. citizenship . . . would
empower their members to become forceful actors in the nation’s
democracy.” 31 He argues further that Native people believed “this new legal
status could enable them to live outside the control of the Indian office and
battle against hostile assaults from white neighbors.” 32 As second-class
citizens, Black Americans suffered all sorts of degradation. For instance,
through the work of Black activists such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, people