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Conference to examine indigenous, African-American relations

A three-day conference next month examining the relationship between Indigenous Americans and African-Americans will highlight the final year of a Ford Foundation-funded project involving KU and Haskell Indian Nations University.

"The First and the Forced: Indigenous and African American Intersections" is the capstone conference of the Shifting Borders of Race and Identity Project, coordinated by KU's Hall Center for the Humanities and funded by a two-year Ford Foundation grant.

Events begin Nov. 9 at Haskell Indian Nations University and will continue Nov. 10 and 11 with panels and performances on the KU and Haskell campuses.

An international community of students, activists and scholars, including members of the Warriors Project, Haskell Indian Nations student body and the Descendants of the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, will convene to share their experiences and research reflecting the multilayered intersections between African-descended and First Nations people. Participants may choose from an assortment of panels, roundtables, curriculum development sessions, documentary films and performances examining interdisciplinary and intergenerational perspectives.

The conference is open to the public and is free to students and $40 for others. For more information, visit the Hall Center Web site or the Shifting Borders Web site or call the Shifting Borders office at (785) 864-7884 or the Hall Center at (785) 864-4798.

Keynote speakers are Tiya Miles, University of Michigan professor, author of Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and co-editor of Crossing Waters, Crossing Paths: Black and Indian Journeys in the Americas (forthcoming); James Riding In (Pawnee Nation), Arizona State University professor and editor of Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies; and Tall Oak, community activist and historian (Absentee Mashantucket Pequot and Wampanoag) from Charlestown, R.I.

Haskell and KU faculty on program include Dan Wildcat, Maryemma Graham, Joyce McCray Pearson, Stacy Leeds, Kevin Willmott, Chico Herbison and Tanya Golash-Boza.

Entertainment during the conference will include perforances by Pamuya, award-winning world music artists based in Alaska who combine Inuit harmonies with the African djembe, on Nov. 10 in the Woodruff Auditorium in KU's Kansas Union; and Ulali, an internationally renowned First Nations women a cappella trio on Nov. 11 at Haskell. The Lied Center and the Shifting Borders project are co-sponsoring the Ulali performance.

Also featured at the conference will be the Power and Place exhibit, which transforms oral history interviews into a provocative walk into history conducted by Shifting Borders oral historians Carmaletta Williams of Johnson County Community College and Mike Tosee of Haskell Indian Nations University.

TOPONYMS

Lewis Lindsay Dyche earned four degrees at KU. Dyche (1857-1915) was professor and chair of zoology and taxidermy and curator of birds and mammals while leading international collecting expeditions. Dyche Hall still displays some of the thousands of wildlife specimens he collected and mounted.