Bøger af Caleb Gayle

“An important part of American history told with a clear-eyed and forceful brilliance.” —National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson “We Refuse to Forget reminds readers, on damn near every page, that we are collectively experiencing a brilliance we've seldom seen or imagined…We Refuse to Forget is a new standard in book-making.” —Kiese Laymon, author of the bestselling Heavy: An American Memoir   A landmark work of untold American history that reshapes our understanding of identity, race, and belonging In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations—even to Cow Tom himself. Why did this happen? How was the U.S. government involved? And what are Cow Tom’s descendants and other Black Creeks doing to regain their citizenship? These are some of the questions that Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving into the history and interviewing Black Creeks who are fighting to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism and greed at the heart of this story. We Refuse to Forget is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of white supremacy and marginalization that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.

The true story of how Black slaves owned by the Creek Nation became full citizens, only to have their descendents lose that citizenship through policies that marginalized Black Creeks.During the 1700s and 1800s, at least five Native American nations in the United States, including the Creek, owned slaves while also recognizing Black people as full citizens.In 1830, these tribe members-Native and Black; indigenous, free, and enslaved-were forced off their lands by the white U.S. government in what became known as the Trail of Tears. After the Civil War, thanks to the leadership of an extraordinary chief named Cow Tom-a former Black slave who had walked the Trail of Tears with the Nation-the Creeks granted equal citizenship to their newly freed slaves. A century later, this experiment in political equality ended when the Creek Nation rejected the so-called "Creek Freedmen"-Creek citizens who were both fully Creek and fully Black-and intentionally marginalized the lifelong Black citizens who could trace their history back generations as both Black and Creek. What happened to this once forward-thinking nation and its experiments with modern forms of citizenship unshackled to race? What role did the U.S. government play? What lessons can be drawn from how marginalized people can re-energize themselves not by excluding but by including others? What can we learn from this familiar story of marginalizing Black people in America? In this powerful story of shifting racial and ethnic identity, Caleb Gayle shows that these questions are not distant history. In fact, in Oklahoma today-known before statehood as Indian Territory-such questions of ethnicity and identity, history and law still drive some of the state's pressing political conversations. This book examines the contradictory, inspiring, and human stories of how diverse Americans-indigenous, Black, white, and those whose identities couldn't be ascribed to any of these categories-built lives and lived as equals and why these issues are still important today. Story Locale: Oklahoma