An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

by Kyle T. Mays Narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2022 - AudioFile

At a time when it seems that every school’s curriculum is under scrutiny, this audiobook educates listeners about people and events that are not included in many history books—the stories of Black and Indigenous Americans from pre-Revolutionary times to the present. Narrator Shaun Taylor-Corbett’s performance is precise and captures listeners’ attention from start to finish. With a delivery that would be the envy of teachers everywhere, Taylor-Corbett uses tones and inflection to infuse every chapter with its own personality. The resulting performance gives life to the author’s perspective on issues and cultural icons that range from contemporary protests to the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century to the Declaration of Independence, and seemingly everything in between. D.J.S. 2023 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

09/20/2021

Mays (Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes), a professor of African American studies and American Indian studies at UCLA, delivers an accessible and informative look at “the links, both solidarities and tensions, between people of African descent and Indigenous peoples in the United States.” He notes that enslaved African labor and expropriated Indigenous land fueled the nation’s rapid rise in the 18th and 19th centuries, and explains how the ideology of white settler colonialism shaped the ways in which Black and Indigenous peoples viewed each other. For instance, Black civil rights leaders including W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and James Baldwin espoused the need for progress for marginalized peoples while perpetuating the myth of the vanishing Native American, according to Mays. In the 1960s and ’70s, the Black Power and Red Power movements brought Black and Indigenous peoples together in protest and gave rise to cross-cultural appreciation, which continues in the contemporary Black Lives Matter and Natives Lives Matters movements. Mays’s colloquial voice (he refers to Du Bois as “a bad dude”) enlivens the often-distressing history, and he draws on his Black and Saginaw Chippewa ancestry to buttress his call for greater solidarity between African Americans and Native Americans. This immersive revisionist history sheds light on an overlooked aspect of the American past. (Nov.)

From the Publisher

Nuanced and illuminating, this book is a worthy addition to a remarkable series.”
—Booklist

“This book reveals uncomfortable truths about the dehumanizing legacies of both capitalism and colonialism while forging a path of reconciliation between the Black and Native communities. Mays offers a solid entry point for further study. An enlightening reexamination of American history.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Accessible and informative . . . Mays’s colloquial voice enlivens the often-distressing history . . . This immersive revisionist history sheds light on an overlooked aspect of the American past.”
—Publishers Weekly

“This book underscores the importance of the bold truth-telling of American history. We all benefit when historians like Mays focus on dismantling misconceptions about Black and Indigenous struggles for liberation, justice, and unity.”
—City Book Review

“Dr. Mays reminds us that both the ‘Indian problem’ and the ‘Negro problem’ are, in fact, a white supremacist problem.”
—Melanin Mvskoke, Afro-Indigenous (Mvskoke Creek) activist

“Reading An Afro-Indigenous History of the US in addition to Beacon Press’s ReVisioning American History series more generally—are one among the many actions available to us for opening our hearts and minds into widening our circles of compassion and deeper solidarity across our differences.”
—The Rev. Dr. Carl Gregg, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, Maryland

“Framed as an answer to questions in Mays’s life as well as in his scholarship, this is a startlingly ambitious and deeply engaging study. . . . Mays changes also the whole story of US whiteness as a system of thought and power. A perfect book to be read . . . to understand the mess we are in and the resources of those who resist.”
—David Roediger, author of How Race Survived US History

“Required reading to comprehend the deep historical relationship between the Indigenous peoples who were transported from Africa into chattel slavery and the Indigenous peoples who were displaced by European settler colonialism to profit from the land and resources, two parallel realities in search of self-determination and justice.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

“While we know that slavery and settler colonialism are intricately linked, Kyle Mays uniquely demonstrates that the afterlives of these two institutions are also linked. They provide the land, bodies, and capital for ‘newer’ systems of bondage to flourish, such as mass incarceration. You will never think of the peoples’ history the same way after reading An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

“Only twenty years ago, Kyle Mays’s voice wouldn’t even have passed through academia’s and media’s gatekeepers. The fact that a voice like this can be heard today and tell his own story is unexpected great news for America . . . and it’s just the beginning.”
—Raoul Peck, director of I Am Not Your Negro and Exterminate All the Brutes

Library Journal

★ 11/01/2021

Mays (history, UCLA; Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes) fills a much-needed void in the interpretation of U.S. history. The author's background intersects both Indigenous (Saginaw Chippewa) and African American experiences. While Indigenous and Black histories are often understood as existing in different spheres, Mays challenges this assertion, contending that these two worlds share common—and often intersecting—relationships. The book explores issues in U.S. history, including settler colonialism, racist violence, and slavery. In it, readers will find lesser-quoted but tangible parts of the American past, by which Indigenous and Black people were excluded from the freedoms guaranteed to others. For instance, Jefferson, an enslaver, condemned the British government in the Declaration of Independence by claiming that the Crown had instigated the "merciless Indian" against colonizers. Mays also discusses other critical documents in early American history, such as Tocqueville's Democracy in America. The complicated relationships between Black people and Indigenous people in the Southern United States are also carefully examined. VERDICT Much like David Treuer's Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, this work presents an Indigenous voice in the interpretation of U.S. history that is highly relevant to current discourse on the country's history and present society; it will likely be much sought-after in college classrooms.—Jeffrey Meyer, Iowa Wesleyan Univ.

JUNE 2022 - AudioFile

At a time when it seems that every school’s curriculum is under scrutiny, this audiobook educates listeners about people and events that are not included in many history books—the stories of Black and Indigenous Americans from pre-Revolutionary times to the present. Narrator Shaun Taylor-Corbett’s performance is precise and captures listeners’ attention from start to finish. With a delivery that would be the envy of teachers everywhere, Taylor-Corbett uses tones and inflection to infuse every chapter with its own personality. The resulting performance gives life to the author’s perspective on issues and cultural icons that range from contemporary protests to the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century to the Declaration of Independence, and seemingly everything in between. D.J.S. 2023 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2021-09-28
A Saginaw Chippewa writer and scholar analyzes the unacknowledged, sometimes fraught relationships between the African American and Indigenous communities.

Many White Americans mistakenly believe that the U.S. is the land of freedom and liberty for all. In this latest installment in the publisher’s ReVisioning American History series, Mays, a UCLA professor of history, counters this notion by examining how American ideals and wealth were built on “enslaved African labor and the expropriation of Indigenous land.” To make his point, the author examines the relationships of Black and Native people to each other and to the U.S. He begins by positing that both groups should be considered Indigenous: one to Africa and the other to the Americas. Slaves were forced to give up tribal identities and assume “Blackness…[as] their condition” just as Natives were forced to assume a generic "red man" identity that marked them as lesser than Whites. This rigid racial hierarchy, along with the institution of slavery, created tensions between Blacks and Natives that became especially apparent during the expansionist phase of American history in the 19th century. For the Cherokee, for example, “race (and antiblackness) became a central component of [their] conceptions of sovereignty.” Both Black and Native communities began articulating their identities in the 20th century through groups like the Society of American Indians and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. But it was not until the civil rights era that Martin Luther King Jr. analyzed both communities together to better understand American racism. Since then, there has been some progress in healing intercommunity rifts, but only radical action can help eradicate them. Though not quite as in-depth as some readers may desire, this book reveals uncomfortable truths about the dehumanizing legacies of both capitalism and colonialism while forging a path of reconciliation between the Black and Native communities. Mays offers a solid entry point for further study.

An enlightening reexamination of American history.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177053592
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	11/30/2021
Series:	ReVisioning History , #6
Edition description:	Unabridged

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