About this Event
Source Booksellers Neigborhood Foundation ends it's celebration of America 250. We are hosting Historican Dr. Kyle T. Mays. We appreciate the partnership with Smithsonian Institution helping to celebrate in out city.
Join to on the afternoon to learn about our history and solidary with a rich conversation and question and answer. We look forward to our community joining us to celebrate.
Reflecting on Native American Experiences as US celebrates America250. We will hear from a important Historian that focuses on Afro Indiginious history and hear about our shared history with the Indigenous People.
Event Title: Native America and Us at America 250
Event Type: Author Event
Date: Sunday November 8 th , 2026
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: Source Booksellers
Come to enjoy to author talk and a celebration of his books during Native American Heritage Month.
About the Book:
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.
Featured books:
An Afro-Indigious History of the United States by Dr. Kyle T. Mays
When We Are Kin: The History and Future of Afro-Indigenous Solidarity by Dr. Kyle T. Mays (Drawing on the Anishinaabe philosophy of mino-bimaadiziwin (the good life))
City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americas and the Creations of Modern Detroit by Dr. Kyle T. Mays
About the Author;
Kyle T. Mays is an Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Chippewa) writer and scholar. He is a professor of African American studies, American Indian studies, and history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author or co-author of four books, including Rethinking the Red Power Movement (with Sam Hitchmough), City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and the Creation of Modern Detroit, An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, and Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America.
partnering with We Own Everything LLC
partnering with the Detroit Historical Museum
Detroit Historical Museum – One of the most significant museums in our area, the Detroit Historical Museum has a keen take on our city’s history – including one their signature exhibits Origins: Life Where the River Bends. Beginning with the area’s Native Peoples, the exhibit explores the many people who lived here, and how they and why they came. This regions First People called it Waawiiyaataanong or “ Where the river Bends. We are looking to host this event on our island park Dossin Museum site.
Praise for Dr. Kyle T. Mays
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
“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
Event venue & nearby stays
Source Booksellers, 4240 Cass Ave, Suite 105, Detroit, United States
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