National Indigenous Peoples Day 2020: Indigenous-Black Solidarity

This Sunday June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. I recommend the following links for those who are looking to learn more about Black/Indigenous Solidarity and Shared Histories during this day and during these pivotal times in community resistance and building:

Indigenous-Black Solidarity

1. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World is a documentary on Indigenous fluency on rock and roll with shared histories with Black folks that many often forget are intimately linked.

2. Peak Magazine is an important publication that gives space for others to their own stories on their terms. An important back issue is the issue on Transformative Justice, which pushes readers to think beyond the prison-industrial complex.

3. Robyn Maynard’s book titled Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present is essential in understanding the history and present-day impacts of policing Black lives.

4. This article in Briarpatch Magazine talks about distinct histories but shared solidarity between Indigenous and Black people in Canada.

5. This peer-reviewed article about African diasporic and Indigenous alliance building on decolonizing potential of collaboration between Black and Indigenous youth in responses to communicable and chronic diseases, namely and as in this article, HIV. Though specific to HIV responses, it is relevant to the current and present day global pandemic of COVID-19.

6. In addition to this African diasporic and Indigenous alliance, check out this research project called Proclaiming Our Roots.

About Proclaiming Our Roots:

The Proclaiming Our Roots project is aimed at honoring the histories, realities, stories and experiences of people who are of African diasporic and Indigenous ancestry, and who reside on Turtle Island. With over 400 years of African diasporic presence in Canada, originating from the British North American slave trade (Cooper, 2006; Di Paolantonio, 2010), relationships developed between Indigenous and Black people. Such relationships between African diasporic and Indigenous peoples were feared by colonialists because both communities experienced shared, as well as distinct forms of colonial oppression, conflict, and the need for survival.