We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power

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A landmark work of Black and Native American history that reconfigures our understanding of identity, race, and belonging and the inspiring ways marginalized people have pushed to redefine their world. In this paradigm-shattering work of American history, 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 members. Thanks to the leadership of a chief named Cow Tom-a former Black slave-a treaty with the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when Creek leadership cancelled citizenship to Black Creeks, even those who can trace their tribal history back generations. Why did this happen What led to this reversal How was the U.S. government involved And how can marginalized people today defend themselves These are some of the questions that award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving deep into the historical record and interviewing Black Creeks suing the Creek Nation to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism, ambition, and greed at the heart of this story. The result is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of marginalization and white supremacy that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.

Reviews

Praise for We Refuse to Forget:

Black Creek stories, rich with both the subtleties and the crudenesses of Americas racial history, force us all to contemplate new forms of reckoning. The New Yorker

An illuminating look at racial dynamics within [the] Creek NationSharp character sketches, incisive history lessons, and Gayles autobiographical reflections as a Jamaican American transplant to Oklahoma make this a powerful portrait of how white supremacy divides marginalized groups and pits them against each other. Publishers Weekly (starred)

"Caleb Gayle's rich and important book reminds us that American history is more surprising, terrible, and, yes, inspiring than we often care to know. The history he weaves is deeply relevant to today's movements for racial justice and Indigenous rights, as well as to the enduring and quintessential question, who is an American I'm grateful for the painstaking work Gayle has done to answer thisquestion for all of us." Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us

Caleb Gayleas a journalist, the son of Jamaicanimmigrants, and a son of the countryhas written a gripping history of the fully black and fully Creek citizens of the tribe who have struggled against both the Republic and the Creek Nation to secure their rightful place in both. He tells a complicated story of the past and in doing so sheds light on the ways our fantasies of race endure and are, gradually, being undone. A vital work. David Treuer, author of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

When Caleb Gayle wrote this book, he reached back into history to find power. By telling the stories of elders like Cow Tom and other Black Creeks who refused to simplify our understanding of race, he amplified that our stories escape categories because our lives are rich and complex. In the end, he let us not forget that America can handle every part that makes us whole.Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist

We Refuse to Forget reminds readers, on damn near every page, that we are collectively experiencing a brilliance we've seldom seen or imagined. Caleb Gayle welcomes us and then deftly interrogates and really initiates the parts of my experience and imagination that I do not want to wholly accept as home. We Refuse to Forget is a new standard in book-making. Kiese Laymon, author of the bestselling Heavy: An American Memoir

Caleb Gayle is both historian and griot. We Refuse to Forget is an important part of American history told with a clear-eyed and forceful brilliance. Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author of Red at the Bone

Agood reminder of a forgotten piece of American history about the Creek Nation, which both enslaved Blacks and accepted Blacks as citizens. Atlanta Journal Constitution

Author Bio

Caleb Gayle is an award-winning journalist who writes about race and identity. A professor at Northeastern University, he is a fellow at New America, PEN America, Harvard's Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, and a visiting scholar at New York University. Gayle's writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Guernica, and other publications. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Gayle is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, the University of Oxford, and has an MBA and a master's in public policy, both from Harvard University. He lives in Boston.