The history of the Mashpee Wampanoag offers a powerful lesson about the dangers of taking racial labels in American historical records at face value. The Mashpee Wampanoag are an Indigenous people of southeastern Massachusetts, particularly Cape Cod. Their ancestors occupied this region long before European colonization, and the Mashpee community survived centuries of warfare, enslavement, land loss, government interference, intermarriage, and changing racial classifications. What makes the...

I’m tired of fake historians assuming that every dark-skinned person in early America must have been African—and then forcing every tribe, document and family into that conclusion. I’m tired of Black Indigenous people being told that our existence requires African admixture. A Black Indian does not need an African ancestor to explain why that Indian is Black. I’m tired of people Africanizing the Gullah Geechee while ignoring their roots among Black Indigenous peoples of the coastal...

When most Americans hear the words "Black Wall Street," they immediately think of Greenwood in Tulsa—a thriving community of successful entrepreneurs, professionals, educators, churches, newspapers, and businesses that was devastated during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. The story is usually told as one of extraordinary Black economic achievement followed by horrific racial violence. That history deserves to be remembered. But I believe there is another layer to this story that deserves...